


Lelio, In the Name of Love

by lestvt



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-02-03 08:49:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12745002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lestvt/pseuds/lestvt
Summary: [Mortal/Royalty AU]So, he decided to make a game of it – a performance, if you will - using all of Versailles as his stage. And it would’ve been a wonderfully good show too, if not for that one stray guest, the one who ruined all Lestat’s plans with his beautiful, muted disposition. For, you see, love is not what he expected it to be; it is real, and it has a name.And for Lestat that name was Louis de Pointe du Lac.But for Louis that name was Lelio.And therein lies the problem.(In this story Louis does not set anything on fire. He does, however, imagine doing so far too often to be considered healthy.)





	1. Prologue - Painted for a Prince

**Author's Note:**

> FOREWORD: 
> 
> First of all, @Anne Rice – Listen, I am so, so sorry about this. My hands just sorta… slipped… approx. 50,000 times… I swear. Please don’t sue me or whatever. I love you… ?
> 
> Second of all, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today because I reread the first three books in the Vampire Chronicles recently and got depressed. So, in order to cope I decided to write a fluffy/smutty, human/royalty, Lestat/Louis AU, because why the fuck not, right? But, just for the record, I haven’t read past the fifth book in the series yet (in 8 years of being a fan), so bear with me… (Also, I just want to note that any smut you find in this fic will feature bottom!Louis, because that is my personal preference, despite that I headcanon them [and everyone else] as switching). 
> 
> Third of all, Louis’s sister, who, as far as I can tell, has no canonical name or personality, is a prominent character in my story, because I needed an excuse to send Louis to France. My original thought was, “maybe he goes because his mother made him chaperone his sister or something…” which eventually evolved into all this. In other words, because Louis’s sister’s name is never said, I had to give her one (Clara) and, consequently, a personality too. So, there’s that… 
> 
> Fourth of all, all French translations (or basically anything not in English, because I think there’s some Italian in here too somewhere…) will be italicized, but you should assume everyone is always speaking French, because this story takes place in France and all the characters are, well… French… (in one way or another). 
> 
> Fifth of all, @Me – just jfc, leave it to me to make my first fully finished story outline for a series I swore I’d never write fanfiction for. I mean seriously, the fuck is my issue? Geez, I suck... (get it? suck???? ahahhahah o k srry i'll stop)
> 
> And Sixth of all (and also lastly), here is some insight on my AU world building decisions, just so you’re not thoroughly confused going in: 
> 
> Try to think of this as a very progressive, revolution-less version of France where gay marriage was never an issue for most countries to begin with, and people are generally more open-minded than they probably, definitely actually were around whatever vague point in the past this is suggested to take place during. And when I say “revolution-less,” I mean that there is still royalty in this version of France (clearly), because it is not our world’s France, therefore it has a completely different history. 
> 
> Likewise, it can be assumed that in this story Louis’s family is some distant French nobility that moved to this universe’s version of Louisiana a hundred years ago or so… or something like that.
> 
> \---
> 
> TL;DR? This is not a true, accurate depiction of real-world France during the vaguely insinuated time period; it’s a different universe with a different history altogether. That’s what AU stands for anyway – Alternate Universe. Also, my knowledge of the Vampire Chronicles is overall kind of limited… 
> 
> So, in short, take everything you read with a grain of salt. 
> 
> Okay, anyway bye. Have fun.  
> Hope it’s worth it…

The room was a verifiable buffet of faces, entirely unfamiliar, but at the same time not. A sea of colors spread out across the ballroom, shrouding the lacquered floors of gold and ivory in a mass of blues, greens, reds, yellows galore. Staccato adornments of feathers and particularly precious jewels reflected in the auburn light cast off the chandeliers and pierced through the scene like shark fins dissecting the surface of an October ocean. The scent of fire, fine spirits, and stewing meats imbued the atmosphere, accompanied by a bitter cocktail of flowery perfumes, bringing a hint of realism to an otherwise otherworldly display, a display which reminded its occupants that for the evening they each embodied a God or Goddess idling away on the peaks of Mt. Olympus – distanced from the woes and horrors of the warring mortal world at their feet.

A hundred voices hushed the echoing notes which sang from the gold and silver instruments that sought to entertain in the purest way. Tinkling girlish laughter, lighthearted banter in a dull roar, and the chiming of real silver on flawless porcelain and wine-filled crystal highlighted an essence of casual indulgence and glee, lifting itself up to permeate the air of the high, vaulted ceilings, embroidered with murals and thick wooden detailing in the colors of early sunlight.

Near the top of one set of dauntingly pristine stairs a pair of striking grey eyes peered out at the painting of a scene which undulated below. The eyes belonged to the same prince for whom the painting had been pieced together, and like any proper critic’s would, they looked on with a skeptical officiousness.  
  
“How fares your mood?” came the voice of the Queen suddenly, crisper and more recognizable than the waves made by the ocean of guests, effectively rousing the Prince from his musings.

“A party like this is no time for a poor disposition,” he answered in a roundabout way. “Only an ingrate would frown at such an occasion.”

Having said this, he turned to face the Queen bearing an almost theatrical grimace.

“Lestat,” she spoke warningly, tilting her chin up.

He cracked a scornful smile then, made even more dramatic by the abnormal elongation of his mouth, and took a few steps to stand beside her.

“It’s truly a grand event, isn’t it?” he asked innocently, his tone belying his expression. “A room full of lovely ladies and gentlemen amicably socializing as they feast and await a prince’s arrival – two beautiful, bursting buffets, one for them and one for me.” Then, in a darker voice, he added, “You know me far too well, Mother.”

“I do, my mirror of a son,” his mother said, “in more ways than you know. It is my youthful heart that’s reflected in your ever-expressive eyes after all. But we are not common folk, Lestat, and we cannot afford to live so listlessly. You and I have obligations to uphold, not just for our people, but for each other, understand?”

“I understand!” Lestat bellowed petulantly. “And then I do not! Why must I oblige to anyone when I have two older brothers to do it for me? Both of which, may I remind you, already have their heirs!”

“But your brothers are not like you, _mon coeur_ ,” she replied patiently, evenly. “And they are not who your father worries for.”

“Worries!” Lestat scoffed and threw up his arms. “What worries does the King hold for me? That I shall live a happy life free of his demands once he is gone? Ha! Well, he need not worry, for Augustin is happy to take up his throne! Undoubtedly, he will be happy to take up demanding things of me as well!”

Gabrielle frowned and with a delicate hand she reached forward and clutched the side of her son’s neck near threateningly, brushing past his full blond hair which so resembled her own.

“He worries you will become lost,” she explained in a harsh whisper. “He sees in you the same as I do – myself. He sees that longing for more, that violent passion which drained from my body into yours the day I birthed you, and he fears it. He fears where it will lead you.”

Lestat backed out of her touch, no matter its rarity, and with his brows knitted together and shoulders hiked up he spat “So, his solution is to bind me to some poor soul? What good would that do anyone?”

“No,” Gabrielle said, hands now clenched before the full skirts of her luminescent, scarlet gown. “His solution, my solution, is to find you your balance.”

But Lestat had never known balance, for he’d avoided it to the best of his ability since childhood. It seemed a boring life to him, a balanced one, and he wondered why his mother could so easily preach for such a thing while simultaneously retelling the tale of how she had lost her will to it.

How could she think this would be enough to convince him? He was not sure. Part of him didn’t believe it to be true, for even now he could see something of himself buried deep within her, something he could not hope to take away, as if it were sewn into the very fabric which held her soul together.

If he tried to grasp it – which he never would – it would unravel, and the Queen of France would meet her end right then and there.

In that vision Lestat also saw her resilience though, and he knew that from this insistence she would not back down, not for her own sake, but for his father’s sake, for the King’s sake, she would see to it that their youngest found his so-called “balance.”

Yet, he couldn’t help wondering…

“And you think this is the right way?” he asked, nearly influenced by her calmness, but not quite. “You too believe that is what I need? Balance?”  
  
The Queen shook her head, not to say no, but to dismiss the question like an errant thought headed down a wayward path of trouble – which it was, Lestat supposed.

“Go now,” she began to say. “It is time to show your face and breathe new life into an event which seldom needs it,” she instructed, placing her hand in the middle of his back. “Whether or not the next eight days prove fruitful depends on a myriad of different factors, most of which are beyond anyone’s control, even yours.

“A little effort is all that is needed to appease your father, Lestat. Show him that you are headed in the right direction, even if it is false. If you must, then think of this as just another of your fleeting games. But it is your onus to give him at least this or he will die thinking he has failed you.”

Unable to argue with her dignified way of shaming him, Lestat turned again towards the curtain shielding him from the crowd, running his fingers along its edge as one might tease a lover.

“A game,” he echoed thoughtfully, peering at the sea of strangers awaiting his judgment, beginning to form his plan. “Or an act, rather… Fine then, allow me to take on a role other than the lead and I shall do it.”

And, without awaiting a reply to the request he did not make, Lestat slipped past her and down the hall to enter the party from a different angle – for a chance at more equal footing, donning the actor’s mask which he’d long ago perfected.

The one which he longed to wear forevermore.


	2. Act I - For Her

“Oh, Louis! It’s magnificent!” Clara sang, spinning in a tight, elegant loop of yellow lace. “Isn’t it everything you’ve ever dreamed it would be? Those dusty books of yours could never compare to the reality that is Paris, France!”  

Louis chuckled at her good-natured jab to his hobby.

“You’re right,” he agreed. “It’s truly a sight to behold, and you fit so nicely within it.”

Clara blushed and smiled at him, backtracking to take his arm affectionately.

“As do you, my dear brother, as do you,” she said, leaning her head upon his shoulder with a contented huff.  She drew wavy figures in the air with her free hand as she continued to speak, like she was casting a spell on the city with her fingertips. “It’s so strange yet wonderful to be here at last, isn’t it? Like meeting a relative you did not know you had and becoming the best of friends in an instant. A real dream come true.”   

Louis hummed his agreement.

Paris truly was something out of a dream, the same dream which had inspired his acquiescence to such a holiday. As reluctant as he had been to leave the work and comfort of their family home, to travel countless days across the ocean amongst strange and potentially dangerous people, the sight and smell of the country which bore his blood made it all worthwhile.

Clara’s delighted expression was a treat in and of itself, but the selfish part of Louis knew that his preference for solitude did, in fact, extend to her, even in this setting. And he also knew he would have felt a resonance of peace that currently did not exist, had he no need to worry for his younger sister’s safety. Yet, it was easy enough to allow himself to indulge in her happiness despite this, and with that he too was content. After all, to visit France had long been a dream over which the two of them had bonded. Though once it had been “the three of us,” but that was a thought for another time, when the silence of the night brought light to his persistent guilt, and Clara was not near, nor lucid enough that he felt compelled to keep his moods in check.

The sun had been at its highest point above when their ship finished its journey through the English Channel, landing them somewhere north of Paris, and they both were eager to see the country’s jewel of a city as soon as possible, well before their feet touched land. So, they rented a stagecoach of crimson drapery, black stained wood and leather, led by horses of identical dark coloring, and hired a coachman who was paid munificently to make haste. Within three days they reached Paris when the sun was once again directly overhead, and there they found themselves overwhelmed by its splendor.

Louis was perturbed by and unable to ignore the strange bout of déjà vu which came over him as took in his surroundings. Despite never having set foot in Paris until now, the evocative words of a lover-turned-friend who was born and raised here rung true to him, so much so that it was like walking into another’s memories.

Clara was exerting boundless energy for her part, fluttering around like a pixie from store window to store window, taking in the sight of the close-knit buildings adorned in late summer flowers, the sound of conversations happening in pure, unaltered French all around them, and the smells of bread, sweets, and coffee as they escaped through café doors in step with satisfied customers.   

“If only Mother had come,” she mused dreamily. “She would’ve loved it here, I’m sure. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Louis granted.

“Do you suppose she will be alright by herself?” Clara asked for the hundredth time, nuzzling and petting his arm for comfort. “Oh, how I wish she would’ve come… It must be horribly lonely in our stuffy old house with no one around to keep things interesting.” She paused, giving her brother a knowing smile. “Well, for a _normal_ person at least.”

“Hey now, I’ll have you know I’d be desperately lonely without the two of you for company,” Louis argued, shooting her a lighthearted smirk. “I am not so austere as to deny it.”  

“Oh, but of course,” Clara laughed teasingly. “Although I suppose seeing us once or twice a year would suit you just fine, more than enough to ease your loneliness, I suspect.”

Louis was not one to argue with the truth, so he opted to change the subject instead.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “Would you like to eat before we settle into tonight’s rooms?”

“Hungry!” Clara gasped in mock offense. “How you speak so casually of hunger! To eat in Paris would be more of an experience than a basic human need. It would not be hunger which would drive me to consume the flavors of the city, but an insatiable urge to broaden my palate. I am much too eager than to think of such petty things as hunger.”

Louis raised a perplexed brow.

“You could’ve just said no,” he told her.  

“Am I hungry? No,” she persisted, giggling beneath her fingers at his confusion. “But will I eat? Yes, I think I shall!”                                         

 Lunch was a mostly quiet affair, as it tended to be when between just the two of them. Louis enjoyed his meal and its unique flavors, but found himself missing home for a moment, mentally citing each of the minute differences in ambiance as he ate.

Meanwhile, Clara only spoke if it was to sing the chef her praises and declare that she would never look at food the same way again. She claimed that she was ruined for eating anywhere else in the world, and so they would simply have to move their mother and their things to Paris, lest she starve to death, and Louis couldn’t help but smile wistfully at her earnestness.

Then later, as the sky colored itself violet and began to fray on the store windows in an array of prismatic hues, he took her shopping.

Before long they stumbled upon a clothing store advertising the latest, most avant-garde fashions. So full was the room with lavishly dressed mannequins, hat racks, and plants that the walls could scarcely be seen beyond them, and Clara’s face lit up with youthful exuberance as she eyed and caressed each of the oddly patterned and textured fabrics they had on display.

Keen to dress to impress at the ball for which they had come, Clara spoke to the seamstress who owned the shop with an intense and purposeful gaze, her voice hushed, but commanding and fierce.

Louis, just as eager to please her as she was to impress the nobility of France, continued to look on with a muted sort of joy, thinking to himself that his dear young sister was certainly becoming a powerful, impassioned woman right before his eyes. At the same time however, he worried for the attention her beauty and liveliness were sure to draw at the gala.  

That being said, the dress Clara chose was suitably stunning, the color of a lightened sky, which contrasted nicely with her full black hair. The lower skirt of the gown trailed out into a sea of ruffles behind her, the overlay trimmed with a pure white lace, just as it was along the sloping neckline that enwrapped her shoulders and dropped into the flounce of sleeves around her elbows. A silk bow sat at the dip of her back, the same material and color of the gown, which accentuated the cinch of her corseted figure, again reminding Louis that his sister was no longer the child he had to coax down from the peaks of the plantation trees for supper. Near her hips the dress was adorned with small, fabric flowers made of the same lace as the lining, decorated by a smattering of artificial golden leaves, giving it a natural, refined feel. Then finally, tying it all together, the gown was accented with gold embroidery to match.

In it Clara looked as though she belonged beside the angels who slept in the clouds, especially as she smiled gratefully up at him, as pure as unfiltered sunlight. He swore he could hear Heaven’s bells ringing…

Overall, it was an expensive outfit, but Louis was good with their money, and he was not fazed by the price. He had been taking care of the family for some time now, ever since the passing of their father, and so he knew what he could and could not afford (the latter being “not much”). Besides, this dress and the smile it invoked were definitely worth the cost.

Louis’s own formal jacket, which he had brought from home for the sake of the event, was dusty and used. He felt no need to make a striking impression upon the nobles at Versailles, for he had not come to France to make his name or face known, but rather to enjoy the country’s life, from which New Orleans had been birthed, but to which it could not compare. Clara was of a different opinion however, and she quickly ushered him towards newer, sleeker clothes that made his old jacket look like poor man’s garb by comparison. And because it was so easy to give into her demands, he did, but still she could not sway him away from basic black and white, nor did she really try.

“Simplicity is more your style anyway,” she said with a bit of cheek, patting his chest lovingly. “You are not showy or loud in personality, so I don’t see why you should be in dress.”

They meandered through Paris for a bit longer after that, just enjoying the atmosphere and each others’ company, but as violet and rose turned to navy and then navy to black, Louis led them to the inn in which they would stay the night before heading to Versailles the next morning.

At the inn they ate a modest dinner before bidding their goodnights and heading for their separate rooms, though Louis could still hear Clara singing sweetly from the other side of the heavily decorated walls for an hour or so longer. Her voice brought him a sense of peace as he read, but once all the sounds of his sister’s wakefulness had ceased, he began to think.

The eight days ahead promised to be interesting, at the very least, but Louis could not help but worry that it would go far beyond mere “interest.” Seeing Clara’s womanly silhouette in his mind’s eye, he simply knew she would catch the attention of some French noble, who would undoubtedly seek to keep her, perhaps even the Prince himself. The notion that she might wish to be kept taunted him as well, for it would not be a stretch of the imagination to assume as much. Clara was already looking for excuses to remain in Paris after all, from the food, to the fashion, to the people, and the language – the pure culture – it was all so overwhelmingly tempting for her. He could almost touch her desire for the city, it was so palpable. And if he could’ve, it would’ve felt as skin pressing into skin – a lover’s touch.    

Suddenly, Louis was struck by a deep desire to burn her elegant, expensive gown to ash.

Realizing that he had made no progress with his book, but that he had been staring at the same line on the same page for the better half of an hour, Louis sighed and marked his place before settling back into the unfamiliar bed on which he currently rested. To his right a candle cast flitting shadows along the walls of the room, making the furniture and all the superfluous décor around him seem to breathe and pulsate with life.   

Tomorrow, at this same time, they would be within the palace walls, amongst strange folk and noble sensibilities which they were both blatantly unfamiliar with. Just imagining it was enough to tighten the ghostly grip on Louis’s lungs, as though his chest was filling with water he could not expel, but he pushed those feelings aside and reminded himself why he was doing this. 

“For her,” he whispered to the nothingness. “For Clara…” who had, in recent days, begun to bear the same heaviness in her eyes as their mother. It was for Clara, who was now, more than ever, noticing the burden of Louis’s personal grief, and who had attempted to help him carry the load, to relieve him of some of it. It was for his sister, who deserved happiness and not to waste her youth giving liberation to an older brother who did not deserve it.

“For Clara,” he said again, closing his eyes, reveling in the memory of her careless smile – returned to her by Paris – and what it bespoke of: her pure, unadulterated innocence.

“For her,” said Louis one final time.  

 

[…]

 

The next thing he knew he was awoken by the sound of gunfire, which widened his eyes and nearly had him catapulting out of bed. However, as the haze of sleep left his senses and the sound came again, he realized it was not gunfire he was hearing, but Clara’s fist upon the door of his room.

“Louis, Louis!” she was calling to him. “Are you still asleep? We’re going to be late if you don’t wake up soon, Louis! Monsieur Gautier will be ready to take us to Versailles any minute! _Louis!_ ”

“I…” Louis began to answer, but his voice cracked, still jagged from disuse, and he paused to clear his throat. “Yes… no, I’m awake, Clara, thank you!”

“Oh good,” came her breathless reply. “Then do hurry up and get dressed, the trip to Versailles will take most of the day and I do not wish to be late!”

“Yes, alright,” he said. “I will be out soon.”

“I’ll be waiting,” she reminded needlessly, and then came the sound of her heels on the wooden floor, growing fainter as she made her way downstairs.

Once she was gone Louis took a deep breath and wiped away the light sheen of sweat which had gathered at the base of his neck in the night, making the hair there stick to his skin unpleasantly.

The inn’s air was humid and thick with the scent of cooking meats and eggs, and from his open window he could hear an infant sobbing somewhere below, accompanied by the smacking of hooves and wheels on stone. The sun was barely above the skyline, made clear by the way the shadows blended with each other upon the room’s surfaces in a fuzzy haze, and as Louis made to sit up his body protested via the cracking of his joints and the soreness of his back muscles, which had been crushed under his weight during his motionless sleep.

Walking over to use the cloth and water from the basin provided, he washed away the stickiness of his face and neck and took a moment to untangle the hair at the back of his head using his fingers. Then slowly, reluctantly, he redressed into a grey vest and jacket, while every few moments glancing warily over at the newer, cleaner ensemble Clara had picked out for him, as if it were jeering at him from where it hung unassumingly over his trunk.

He was dreading what it represented.    

Truly, Louis was not an exceptionally social person. As such the thought of a week-long party did not sit well with him, and when the invitation from the Queen had arrived at Pointe du Lac, he was very tempted to throw it in the fireplace and never speak nor think of it again. However, he knew that if he were to do such a thing, the guilt of denying his sister this opportunity would gradually eat away at him until nothing remained but a husk. So, he shared the news with Clara anyway, vainly hanging onto the hope that their mother would find some reason to forbid them from going.

Of course, she had not, and later that same evening she pulled Louis aside to speak on the matter:

 

 _“It is good of you to do this for your sister; I know how much you dislike these large public events,” she had said._ _“My only hope is that you do not completely dismiss your own comfort for Clara’s sake. Sometimes I worry you endure too much self-sacrifice in the name of love, and you will not last if you keep on this way.”_

_He shook his head guardedly. “If that were true, then Paul…” he began to argue, but his mother quickly shut him down._

_“Hush, Louis, enough of that,” she scolded. “How many times must I tell you that it is alright to let these things go? You have my permission. You have Clara’s. And either way Paul would not expect martyrdom of you, not while your sister and I are still here.”_

_Louis had been unable to withhold his frustrated sigh._

_“It is not martyrdom summoning me, it is the Queen,” he attempted to sooth, and in that moment it was the truth. “I wouldn’t travel all the way to France just to appease Clara. I wish to see the country too. I think we will both find some happiness there.”_

In the present though, Louis’s sunken expression negated such a notion of happiness, and as he stared back at himself from the hotel mirror’s polished, unblemished surface, it became painfully clear that France was not a magic land capable of absolving his remorse. His face said it all.

Regardless, it was much too late to call the whole thing off now, no matter how much he wished he could.

Down at the front of the inn, Clara was speaking to their driver, Monsieur Gautier, in a giddy, odd combination of English, German, and French (practicing her languages as she so loved to do), and asking a plethora of questions about his life in Paris.

Monsieur Gautier, a polite, older man with a head of graying hair, indulged her kindly, answering what he could and allowing her to teach him a translation or two as she went.

Upon spotting Louis, he smiled graciously and moved to put his trunk into the stagecoach alongside Clara’s.

“Thank you,” Louis said while ignoring the way Clara began to regard his complexion with the keen eyes of a seasoned sleuth.

“It is my pleasure, Monsieur,” Gautier replied. “Shall we depart for Versailles right away?”

“Yes!” Clara answered for him. “I need all the time I am allowed to prepare for tonight! You’d be surprised how long it can take to put on a proper ball gown, Monsieur Gautier.”

“Indeed, I probably would,” he chuckled fondly as he opened the stagecoach door and used a hand to invite them inside.

Once alone within the confines of the cabin, Clara instantly began to pester Louis about his darkened expression. As expected.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, already knowing the answer, or so she assumed.

“Yes, Clara,” Louis bluffed, since in truth, though he had not woken once during the night, he had not slept well at all.  

Even now he could see flashes of the stormy dreams cooked up by his perilous subconscious, still dancing in the peripheral of his vision. Deformed faces with skin of charcoal and voices of smoke jumped in and out of existence, trying to escape the confines of his memories, his sins. It was ghostly, it was supernatural, it was a superstitious disease, and, above all, it plagued him greatly. Persistently.         

So, in short, no, he hadn’t slept well.

“Are you sure?” Clara still asked, too perceptive for her own good. “You look ill… I wonder if you’ll even last until the party. Maybe you should try to rest during the trip. I don’t want you passing out from exhaustion in a room full of French socialites. Can you image? How embarrassing…”  

“I’m sure I will be quite alright,” Louis sighed, because he knew he had no choice.

“You didn’t eat breakfast either, did you?” Clara kept on. “Miss Lorraine cooked quite a feast for the guests of the inn this morning. But I knew you’d forget, so I snuck this away for you.” With that she pulled some fresh, still warm bread from her bag, wrapped in a white cloth stained with oil, and held it out to him. “Here.”  

“Thank you,” he said, accepting the bread. “And all this time I thought I was the one chaperoning you, when it turns out it was actually the other way around.”

She emitted a trickle of laughter at that. “It is mutual,” she explained. “I need you to make sure I do not get into trouble, and you need me to make sure you do not let yourself fade into nothing.”   

“Fair enough,” Louis conceded.

For a time then Clara allowed a sort of quiet to manifest around them. The sound of the horses and the creaking of the carriage was muffled by the enclosure in which they sat, but it could be felt more than heard, as the texture of the stone pathway made itself known via the rattling vibrations that traveled through the cabin structure and into their bones.

Then, as if irked by the silence, Clara shattered it.

“Do you think we will see Armand at the welcoming ceremony?” she wondered. “I’d love to speak with him again.”   

Louis was forced to repress a very physical reaction to that name as she said it, feeling the remnants of what it might have been in the tightening of his fingers.

“Perhaps,” he spoke, cursing the dither ever present in his tone.

Clara frowned and narrowed her eyes curiously, quickly catching on. “Is that what you’re so worried over?” she pressed. “I thought you two departed on good terms.”

“We did,” Louis insisted, staring down at the bread in his hand, suddenly devoid of appetite. “And I am not worried.”

 Clara scoffed, “Liar.” Then, moving to take his free hand into her own, she added, “When was the last time your mind was not a hectic place, Louis? Before Father’s death or before Paul’s? I’m your sister; I understand you much better than you’d like to think, you know.”  

Of course, she was correct, and he told her as much by gently squeezing her hand.

“Just promise me one thing, and all will be right with my world at least for a while,” Louis said quietly, raising his head to look into her gorgeous green eyes, which were so strikingly similar to his own.

Clara smiled sadly.

“If a promise were all it took, then I’d promise you every star in the sky, Louis,” she told him, so sweetly sincere that it nearly had him gagging. “What is it?”

Louis took a deep breath and returned her smile, and together like this they might’ve been mistaken for twins, because even as they were so similar in appearance, they were even more similar in their shared grief. And grief has a way of shaping one’s face that cannot be explained, only experienced or witnessed, much like grief itself.

Clara was always right, Louis thought again; she saw in him even what he hid from himself. She knew that he was selfish in his ethos and that he often forgot to consider her own sorrows as a result. Yet, she bore him no ill will, because she knew that he was at odds with everything, and she knew it because she felt it too. In the end, they only truly differed in the materialization of their symptoms, but they both had lost a father slowly and then a brother suddenly, and they acquired a unique acumen in regards to each other because of it.       

“Just promise me that when the week is up you will return to New Orleans,” Louis pleaded to his sister, bearing that thought in mind. “Promise you will return with me.”

“Oh, Louis!” Clara all but cried in her easy understanding, pushing herself into his embrace. “Of course, I promise! I would not leave you, Louis, just as you would not leave me! I couldn’t go on without you! This silly, restless brother of mine, shouldn’t you know that already?”  

Unable to form words to acknowledge that yes, he should, Louis could only hold her tighter in response, kiss her head, and stroke her hair so as to comfort them both.

But at the same time he couldn’t help thinking that her words were empty, for how could she know what her future would bring, how it would change her? How could she know what she’d be feeling a week, a month, a year from now? Would her love truly persist up until her death?

What if she realized that he did not deserve her? She would someday, wouldn’t she? She had to.

Yet here she was clinging to him as though she were drowning.

Drowning. Just as Louis felt he would without her to keep him afloat.  

Because that was the gist of it, wasn’t it?   

He was only living because Clara was there to make it so.

He was only living for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for making it this far... 
> 
> Okay, so here's the deal: Chapters 1-3 (which I'm calling "Acts") are all finished, but I probably won't be posting Act 2 until I'm at least done with Act 4(+). This is my clever way of motivating myself to write faster (which doesn't make sense, but so far seems to be working, since I told myself I couldn't post any of this story until I was at least halfway done [which I'm not but... close enough ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ ], and I then ended up writing 20,000+ words in under 2 months [an unusual feat for me]). 
> 
> Anyway, my estimate for the story's completion is that there will be 8 acts + the prologue and epilogue (so, 10 total), it will be ~50,000 words, and I might be finished by March or April (depending on how busy school gets for me). 
> 
> Another thing: feedback is my life-source.............  
> So, just hit me up in those comments if you wanna see more sooner~ ;)


	3. Act II - An Act of Class

Lestat strode purposefully through the halls of the palace newly donning his humblest apparel (which actually wasn’t very humble at all) that he often used to gallivant amongst the common folk. He was rather fond of the outfit and what it signified, no matter how dated it was; the jacket was almost like a second skin for him and along with that skin came many _delightful_ memories.

The fact of the matter was that Lestat had always found a wicked satisfaction in deceiving the hoi polloi of France, for no one truly knew the face of the elusive Prince, and it was just so terribly easy to get away with.  

Of course, there were rumors of his handsomeness (mostly based on the look of his mother and talk of a portrait), and people had put together that he refused to marry (because why else would the Queen announce such a wasteful, exclusive extravaganza and then invite only the most beautiful and eligible people she knew?). But no one except the Prince, himself, was aware of his gratuitous habit of sleeping around, not even the people he bedded (well… most of them), and he took great pleasure in this fact, because for each conquest he embarked on, he’d perfected a new role.   

Once he was Felix, and then he was Dominique, and then Jean, and Remy, then Antoine, and Luc, and then… well, you get the point.

And above all, Lestat was quite the tactile man and a bit of a Hedonist, and so in his personal opinion there were no greater pleasures than those of the flesh. But the stage was a close second. So, it made sense that combining the two would result in the penultimate pleasure, right? And if that wasn’t the point of existing in this world, well then Lestat wasn’t sure what he was still living for.  

His next act was sure to be the grandest of them all though – a true showstopper, worth every cent – and in it he would play the most important role he’d ever taken on. He wouldn’t just be the suave man from out of town this time, oh no. He would be Lelio de Valois, friend and advisor to the mysterious Prince Lestat, sent out on a quest in the name of love (which Lestat did not believe himself capable of).     

So, that was the purpose with which Lestat strode, to play his little game, and with his mother’s blessing no less! And, better yet, this time he would not simply deceive some poor, witless commoners, but the stuck up, blue-blooded elite themselves!

Lestat was giddy with spiteful excitement just thinking about it!

In this way he would be no one’s puppet barring his own.  

Then, once the show had ended, and his dying father acknowledged his “efforts,” he would enact the encore: leaving Versailles and never again returning to take on the role of the Prince. A true actor to the bone, Lelio would make his hobby into his occupation; he would imbed it into his very veins, a replacement for his tarnished royal blood. And it would be so simple, so freeing, he knew – so much better than marrying, the mere thought of which clawed a dramatic shiver up his spine.

After all, Lestat couldn’t fathom how he would possibly find balance in such an arrangement. Even his mother seemed skeptical of it, probably from experience. She certainly knew that what he needed was sovereignty in any case; the same as she had and still did. Yet, she could not bring herself to defy her husband’s parting wishes completely.

It was no matter to Lestat though, for he would do as he pleased, and the Queen not only knew this, but approved of it.

It’s good to be the favorite, he’d admit, but not quite enough anymore...   

As he approached the first floor entrance to the ballroom, Lestat let the waves of sound wash over and invigorate him. He had to concentrate, misplace himself, and find his character within his soul, because if this was going to be the performance of a lifetime, then he had to live it! And so, by the time he pushed his way through the towering double doors leading to the ball, parting them like the gates to a mythical world, he was no longer the Prince Lestat.

He was wholly Lelio.

This first gala, the “Welcoming Ceremony,” as they were calling it, was still breathing with vicious vitality as he joined in. Just the same as he had witnessed it through the eyes of Lestat, Lelio saw the same ocean with the same cold-blooded sharks. Both ladies and men were out for the hunt tonight, some young and fresh faced and pretty, others made handsome and debonair by experience and time, all smiling beautifully, temptingly in their colorful, excessive outfits of fine silk and lace.

It was truly lovely, but the livelihood of the event could not avoid being tainted by a widespread desire to devour, for it had been hours now, and they were beginning to wonder about “the missing prince.” A sense of restlessness was settling like fog around the rooms of people, all of whom were far too eager to sink their allegorical fangs into Lestat. For the appetizer was no longer satisfactory and now they were craving the entrée they’d been promised.

But Lestat had no intention of providing such an entrée. On the contrary! Unbeknownst to the guests, they were the real ones on tonight’s menu – and oh! How he thrived on their dreadful anticipation! It was delicious! How could it not be? This buffet of classy, unattached beauties had been handpicked by the Queen – the one person who truly knew Lestat best – just for him!

With that in mind, Lestat was practically salivating for a taste as he surveyed the scene around him.

Just then something else donned on him: there was not a familiar face in the house, not even his brothers’, because both of them were away on royal business for the time.

And together these realizations made him wonder if it wasn’t really luck on his side after all, but perhaps his mother had actually seen through him long ago. Perhaps she knew of Felix, and Dominique, and Jean, and Remy, and Antoine, and Luc. Perhaps she had once played a similar game herself. And perhaps she had reserved a front row seat for the show.   

Of course, this thought only helped to spur Lestat on all the more. He fought back the, no doubt, terrifying grin that threatened to break across his face, but he could not – _would not_ resist the urge to dig in. That would be just plain ungrateful!

Besides, his public was waiting! And though they might, in fact, get to see their prince after all, Lestat would make sure they were none the wiser to it – an exceptionally entertaining notion all on its own.

After all, people had a certain way of acting when in the presence of a prince, a way which they easily dismissed in the face of someone they deemed comparable in class. That alone gave Lelio a more honest look at the nature of his guests than Lestat could’ve ever hoped for: one advantage his royal title never had afforded him.  

_Now, for the first act to begin._

Lestat… or should we say Lelio(?) entered the crowd sleekly, weaving through the bodies with the skill of a snake on the hunt for a rat in a field full of mice. He keyed in on the whispers around him, soaking in the sound of the worry and fervor swelling in the conversations. It was music to his ears, a sign that the fruits of deception were ripe to be picked.    

Lestat stopped in his tracks then, having heard the echo of his name at a perfectly piqued pitch. A few paces to his right stood the source of the noise, a siren of a girl with shiny golden hair (much like his own), who was whining at her companion, a tall redheaded thing donning a daintily freckled nose, with little regard for those around her.  

Her words instantly drew him to them.

“…but for the Prince to stand up his own party,” she was in the midst of saying. “He must be a very petulant one, indeed. No wonder he has yet to marry. And to think, we traveled all this way just to catch a glimpse of him.”   

The redhead stuttered and glanced around nervously. “Well… I did hear a thing or two about him being petulant from my aunt,” she murmured, moving her fan to cover her mouth. “Either way, it was worth it to see the Palace if you ask me.”  

The blonde let out a sigh. “Yes, but I can’t help being disappointed,” she huffed, “and I can’t stand the mystery! Will he ever show, do you think?”    

“Excuse me, ladies.” Lestat seized his opportunity and slid up behind them, placing each his hands upon one of their shoulders. “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation and I thought I might offer some answers.”  

The redhead blushed and jumped at his touch, but the blonde merely narrowed her eyes and frowned at him suspiciously.

“And you are?” she demanded more than asked.

“Someone who knows something of the Prince,” Lestat replied and, shooting her with his most charming smile, he reached for her hand to grace her knuckles with a kiss.

“My name is Lelio de Valois, trusted friend and advisor to Prince Lestat, and if you promise to keep it just between us, I will let you in on a little secret regarding his whereabouts.” With this he glanced over to the redhead and said again, “Just between us three.”

Without a second thought the blonde nodded curtly and the redheaded answered in a whispered, “Yes, of course,” and Lestat already knew they were lying; it was the reason he’d come to them. By the end of the night the whole party would be privy to Lelio’s endeavor. By the end of the night they would all be pining for his favor, because this “secret” was sure to spread like wildfire.    

 _Perfect_ , he thought. _Just perfect._     

“Prince Lestat is very anxious about this engagement,” he began to explain, finding himself a bit disgusted by the truth hidden in the lie. “He wants to please the King, but he does not wish to leave his side while he has so little time left in this world. Still, the King wishes for him to marry, but the Prince fears he is in no condition to choose a consort, nor does he think he is properly versed in ways of the heart, so he has sent me to pick a spouse for him in his stead.”

“Is that true?” the redhead questioned in astonishment, but the blonde was not so easily tricked.

“And why would he do such a thing?” she pressed. “The Queen arranged this event just for him. Did she not do it to lighten his mood? No one knows us as well as our mothers, isn’t that right? So, why would she arrange all this if she knew he would refuse to leave the King’s side? And let’s not forget, I’ve heard tell that the Prince is very handsome and sociable and that people are often drawn to his vibrant personality within seconds of meeting him. Yet, you’re here claiming he is avoiding a ball in his honor out of grief and shyness?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m claiming,” Lestat countered, feigning insult with a hand upon his chest. “It is as I said; Prince Lestat wishes to stay by the King’s side, but he does not want to deny his father’s dying wish for him. So, you see, as his closest friend he has entrusted me with the task of finding his match, because he believes only I can choose for him the perfect lover and…” He leaned in close to the blonde then, near enough that he could see the flecks of yellow in her chestnut colored eyes. “I happen to agree.”

She didn’t seem fully convinced, but then, it didn’t really matter, since the two of them would surely spread the tale whether they believed it or not, and that was their only use at the moment. Then, once everyone knew of it, the rumor would become not just the talk of the week, but the truth of it.   

“Thank you for sharing, Monsieur Lelio. I can assure you, your secret is safe with us,” the blonde said bitterly. “I wish you luck in finding your friend, the Prince, a lover. Is there anyone who has caught your attention yet so far?”  

Lestat smirked at her clever way of asking what he was looking for, knowing she wished it to be herself.

Meanwhile, her companion was gazing at her worriedly, hearing her distaste for this outcome in her tone, and probably praying it was not enough to offend their only connection to the Prince.

Between the two, Lestat had to admit the redhead was more appealing to him, but there was still a room full of beauties to explore, and he’d only just begun.

“I’m afraid I have not,” he answered almost uncouthly. “But then, I haven’t had much time to acquaint myself with most of the party yet. So, if you’ll excuse me…”

And with that, Lestat swept away from the women, gleefully noting the scandalized look on the blonde’s face as he did so. No doubt she was thinking he was terribly rude for not even bothering to ask their names. No doubt she knew this meant she had no chance with the Prince either.   

Once free of her scrutiny, Lestat again took in the sight of the crowd around him. In varying shades of flesh and hair and eyes he saw a world of possibility.

 _Now, who would the Prince prefer?_ he pondered mirthfully, eyeing a handsome man with skin like the night sky, another younger gentleman with caramel hair and a tanned complexion, a woman with a pretty, pale, powered face, laughing and flirting with those drawn to her pulsating presence.

Though it seemed an interesting scene, he past it by and instead wandered from room to room, taking inventory of the guests one by one, listening as his rumor took hold of their minds, watching as they pointed at him indiscreetly and whispered with reverence.

It was a magical event, with so many suitors to choose from, but Lestat had yet to be truly enraptured by any one person. 

Then, just like that, he spotted her up by the balcony.

Near the edge of the party sat a young girl, no older than nineteen, maybe twenty at most, in a dress of robin’s egg blue. Her long, bounteous black hair hung in ringlets around her face, escaping the confines of her stylist’s work as though it could not be tamed with mere pins and ribbons. She sat with a straight, confident posture, but her expression was one of trepidation and frustration, and she was seemingly uninterested in the events of the gala unfolding around her. She was cut off from it, gazing out towards the gardens, lost in her own secret place.

And, in all her glorious detachment, she was gorgeous.

Lestat took the stairs two at a time as he made his way towards her, woefully unable to resist the call of her oddly solitary behavior, and never one to ignore his gut. As he drew nearer, he could make out the gold detailing of her dress, the lace which accented her figure so well, and he was enraptured by it. Surely, a girl with such refined taste would be worth his time, he thought.              

“Is something not to your liking, my lady?” he asked lightly as he approached, shaking the girl from her musings, revealing that she was even more beautiful without such a heavy scowl marring her face.   

Startled, the girl turned and blinked blankly at him.

“Oh, no, of course not!” she chirped in heavily accented French, smiling slightly at the sight of his handsome, accommodating grin. “I… I’m sorry. Everything is perfect, Monsieur...”

She hesitated.

“Lelio de Valois,” Lestat lied artfully, laying a kiss upon her hand which ignited a blush under her softly curved cheeks. “Friend and advisor to Prince Lestat,” he continued. “And you are?”

“Oh, goodness!” the girl said again, standing to curtsey prettily. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Monsieur Lelio. My name is Clara de Pointe du Lac.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” Lestat gave the cliché reply, thinking to himself that he had heard that name somewhere before. “Now, pray tell, if everything is perfect, as you say, then what could have possibly brought such an unsightly frown to your otherwise beautiful face?” 

Clara paused to think before answering, glancing again towards the balcony with troubled eyes of emerald. She did not even acknowledge his flirtation, too lost in whatever was bothering her, and he was again drawn to that disconnect in her gaze, as though she couldn’t be bothered with handsome men at the moment. It was below her.     

“It is my brother,” she finally said. “He has been… I almost said ‘not himself,’ but this melancholy attitude of his is very much himself, you see. Still, I worry for him.”

“Melancholy?” Lestat wondered aloud, fascinated, for who but he had reason to be melancholy at such an extravagant event? “So, something is not to _his_ liking?”       

“No, no,” Clara amended. “It has naught to do with the party – my brother is one to create his own troubles out of nothing. He is burdened by unnecessary guilt and responsibility. Not to mention, he dislikes large groups of people.” She shook her head then, just before adding, “But I’ve already said too much. It is not my business to divulge.” 

Even more intrigued, but not wishing to scare her off, Lestat fought the urge to assault her with questions and instead said, “I understand,” in a most casual tone. “Still, I do wish you would indulge in the party. You must have traveled quite a while to be here…”

He trailed off, giving her time to fill in the blanks without being asked, but she did not.

“Though, I shouldn’t assume things, I suppose. Where did you say you came from?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t,” Clara admitted. “We’re from New Orleans.”

 _New Orléans… Pointe du Lac._ Together the names rang a bell inside Lestat’s mind, alerting his memory. Now he was certain he had heard of Clara’s family before, many times in fact, because he remembered in detail all the stories of them told by his most hated cousin.

Looking at her now provoked in him an oddly full-body sensation, like the pure thrill of, for the first time, witnessing an actor give life to a character previously bound by words and paper. Lestat almost felt as if he knew them, as if he knew Clara personally, but he’d been blind up until that very moment, so he was only just now seeing her face. And it was so much more moving than the one he had previously imagined.

Lestat wanted to laugh at himself – he almost did! How ironic it was that he had been so piously drawn to her when he’d often mocked his cousin for the very same reason!           

 “It is an honor to have you here,” he said then, bowing theatrically, playfully to her and shelving those thoughts for the time being. “To come from New Orleans is a long journey indeed. It would be a shame not to take pleasure in the party now that you’re finally here.”

Clara smiled sadly and looked outside again, unable to resist it seemed.

“I wish I could,” she whispered so quietly Lestat had to strain to hear her over the rush of the music and chatter below. “But how can I celebrate while my brother is… It wouldn’t be right.”

Lestat felt a deep empathy for her as she spoke, her tone so resigned to her situation, her round, leafy eyes lidded with anguish, her hands wringing each other in stress.

Wanting to sooth her, he took one hand out of the grip of the other and guided her back into her seat, kneeling before her and granting the most sincere smile he could muster.  

“I can see this weighs heavily on you, so you may confide in me if you wish,” he told her gently, for she was pretty and pure and he was weak to it. He needed to know more.

 “I will not repeat any of what you say, you have my word.” And it was the truth, for what good would it have done Lestat to lie about such a thing? Right now he only wished to erase the pain from her lovely visage. His game was but an afterthought.

“No, I couldn’t trouble you…” she said, but Lestat quickly waved a hand, motioning for her to stop and pay attention.

“It’s no trouble for me to listen to the woes of a beautiful woman if it eases her mind even a bit,” he assured her. “And besides, confiding in a third party can be very cathartic.”  

Clara regarded him curiously, glancing between his face and his hand upon her own, then, for a third time, to the balcony.  

Finally, she broke down a wall.

“It’s not a pleasant story,” she began cautiously, giving Lestat time to back out.

When he said nothing, but stubbornly met her eyes, silently attempting to convey his honest interest through gaze alone, she continued on.

“It starts with the fact that ever since the death of our father, and that was seven years ago now, my brother, Louis, has been running our plantation and taking care of our family,” Clara explained wearily. “I could see it even back then, the burden he carried, but it always blew over like the rain on the fields, so I dismissed it as a child would. Although, I suppose I was still a child then. I may even still be, but Louis was never so immature, and he always did all he could to protect and care for us. He adapted to it like a bird to the sky, and he even took some pride in his work for the plantation until...”

She trailed off, biting her own lips.  

“Until?” Lestat prompted, thoroughly infatuated by her poetic language.  

A tremor made its way through Clara’s hand, undoubtedly the result of repressed emotion, of her holding back tears.     

 “A little over two years ago our younger brother passed away suddenly,” she whispered, her voice an angel’s lament. “He was so young, just fifteen…” She took a moment to dap at the corner of her eyes, averting her gaze to the floor. “And, of course, Louis took all the blame for himself and refuses to give it up. But the two of us… we came to France because it was a dream we’d all shared before the accident and it was supposed to help us move on. And seeing Paris made me so elated, I thought it might lighten Louis’s mood as well, but…”

“But it did not,” Lestat finished for her, sobered by her talk of death.

He thought briefly of his bedridden father, lying in his room in a different part of the palace.

“Still, you cannot allow yourself to bear this guilt with your brother if it is not really anyone’s to bear,” he told her.

“But how can I find happiness when he is so sad?” she countered, suddenly sounding frantic, desperate for a reason to do so. “What kind of sister would I be if I simply allowed myself to get lost in a party, when Louis is out there still mourning our brother and regarding himself as a murderer for a crime he did not commit? Why do I deserve to find happiness where he cannot? I do not wish to leave him alone! But I do not wish for him to leave me either! Not him too!”

Lestat examined Clara’s expression, her anguish, with morbid interest. She was such a passionate girl, he’d already heard as much, but now he was seeing the proof of it, and it almost would’ve reminded him of himself if not for the fact that she obviously loved her family dearly.

Meanwhile, Lestat had nothing but contempt for most of his.

“You think he would leave you?” was what he asked.

 _What kind of fool would leave you?_ Was what he wanted to ask.

She nodded, solemn, and wiped a tear off her cheek.

“I know it.” She turned her eyes straight into Lestat’s. “He walks the devil’s road. Alone. And for my sake he pretends not to.”   

“How about this then,” he offered with newfound determination, acting on a whim fueled by his own remorse.

This whole performance was completely improvised after all, and whims are what improvisation is all about – it’s how you keep the audience engaged and withering for more.

“I will go check on your brother,” he said, “and you will join the party, knowing that surely he will be fine for the night, and he would not want you to deny yourself the pleasures of Versailles.” 

Clara’s eyes widened with gratitude, two petite portals to paradise gleaming anew.  

“I do not wish to trouble you with this either, Monsieur Lelio,” she insisted swiftly, leaning forward in her seat just a bit. “We’ve only just met.”     

“It is no trouble,” Lestat reminded her, “as long as you are smiling. In any case, it is the least I can do. As a servant of the royal family it is my job to care for the Queen’s guests. So, what do you say?”

Clara’s lips stretched into a thin line as she regarded him carefully.

“I will agree on one condition,” she all but conceded.

“Anything,” Lestat said.  

She corrected her posture. 

“Louis cannot know of this conversation,” Clara instructed resolutely, her index finger in the air. “He would surely scold me for confiding our personal matters in a stranger if he did. Besides that, he would brush you off like a bug upon his shoulder if he knew I had sent you to check on him.”   

“Ah, I see,” Lestat said, smiling at her deviously, loving her already for her unblushing invitation for deception. “In that case, it shall remain just between us,” he agreed. “Our meeting will be but an accident.”

“He’s gone out to the gardens,” Clara kept on, regaining more of her natural confidence and assertiveness as she went. “When you find him, he will be reluctant to speak to you. Louis is rather fond of his loneliness, so he’s likely to try to dismiss you.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Lestat acknowledged as he stood and offered her a hand. “Is there anything else I should know?”

“No, but there is something I would like to know, if you don’t mind,” she said, accepting his arm and allowing him to bring her to her feet.      

“But of course.”  

“You say you are a friend of the Prince, but do you know of his cousin, Armand?”

 Lestat stiffened and blanched, not having expected her to mention that name so suddenly. 

 “Yes,” he answered with great reluctance. “I know of him.”

“Do you think I will see him this week?” she asked. “He was very close with my brother, and I grew fond of him while he stayed with us at the plantation. I’d like to speak with him again, if at all possible.”

“He was invited,” Lestat admitted against his better judgment, staring straight ahead as they began to walk. “But I do not know if he will come.”

 _Nor do I want him to,_ he thought. 

Clara seemed to note the stiffness of his tone, but if she thought anything of it, she did not say. She probably considered it rude to question a stranger who had just promised to do her a favor for nothing.

“I am indebted to you, Monsieur Lelio,” she said charmingly as Lestat led her down the stairs to join the crowd. “You are very kind for doing this. If not for you, I would’ve followed after Louis myself, never having taken the time to breathe in the essence of the Palace of Versailles. And who knows? We might’ve gone home, just like that, and then I’d have nothing but another regret to live with. So…” She turned to him, beaming. “I cannot thank you enough.”  

Lestat felt a painful repentance for lying to such a soft, but strong soul as she said this. He smiled in return, but it hardly reached his eyes.

Impulsively, he kissed Clara’s cheek, near ready to beg the angel before him, the one straight out of his dreams, for forgiveness.

But instead he could only say, “With this, consider your debt paid.”

And again he swept away, this time out of the thrall of the crowd and headed straight for the gardens to fulfill his promise, ignoring the hundreds of eyes that followed and the itching, persistent guilt that was violating the very pores of his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, like Act 1, Act 2 here is under 5,000 words. Originally, I wasn't going to post it until Act 4 was finished (I've only just started it), but since Act 3 ended up closer to 10,000 words, I decided to just go ahead and publish this part now, because Act 4 might end up being even longer than that and therefore it will take longer than anticipated to get done... 
> 
> Otherwise, here are just a few notes on this part of the story: 
> 
> When I initially wrote this act I didn't have a full grasp of how I wanted to portray Clara and Louis's relationship yet, so I think her explanation is a bit lacking here. Eventually I settled on the idea that Clara begins to resent Louis for being depressed, and Louis begins to resent Clara for trying to "fix" him, but you won't get more elaboration on that until Act 3. 
> 
> As for Lestat, he admits this to the audience later, but despite his "game" he is still easily swayed by the depth and beauty of people. This is why he's so easily taken with Clara and her drama. He has a radar for that sort of thing apparently... hahaha. Again, it seems odd and misplaced in this part of the story, but Act 3 will help solidify everything I think. 
> 
> As of right now, Act 3 is the best part in my opinion, so I'm very excited to finish Act 4 so I can post it. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> Stay tuned for more~


	4. Act III - L'appel du Vide

There were roses in the garden at the Palace of Versailles, roses like bloody velvet. And, as it so often did, their crimson coloring eclipsed the scene completely – the effortless focus point of a landscape fit for canvas. In the light of the sun the roses surely shone, always the most alluring attraction amongst the assorted flowers, trees, bushes, and fountains, cliché as it might’ve been to think so. After all, clichés are clichés for a reason, aren’t they?

Yet, even beneath the shroud of the violet night, their shade was only made all the more salient when glazed in the silver casting of a nearly full moon. An all around overpowering presence, the roses seemed to glow in an unearthly way with help from that cold, reflected light. They were so meticulously cared for, so healthy and lush even as the season grew bitter, closer and closer to autumn. Something about them was ethereal, enchanted, everlasting.   

Louis closed his eyes to the sight, pinching the bridge of his nose as he fought to forget what it instantly reminded him of. Not to mention the ache that was steadily blooming between his brows.

He tried to breathe steadily, deeply, to focus on the scent of soft floral and soil, the feeling of a lazy, but refreshingly cool breeze which had begun rolling in earlier that day, lessening the unforgiving warmth of his skin, and the muffled laughter and dignified debates (better known as “drunken arguing”) that carried over from the palace with that same wind.

 _If only there were silence_ , he thought, dreaming of the quiet of home.  

But Clara’s voice was still an echo in his mind, one of many, admonishing and confused, desperate. She’d sounded just as he’d always felt. And no matter how hard he tried, he could not completely block it out, that ache a constant reminder.

 

 

_“But what good does it do to think like that now?” she had quietly pleaded with him as they sat in the stagecoach on their way to the palace, already holding back tears._

_They’d been discussing Louis’s “health” all evening so far, a preamble to their usual arguments about suffering and blame. It was such a familiar scene, Louis could almost trick himself into believing they were back at the plantation and their mother was watching on in silence from the other room._

_Clara had been fighting to absolve Louis of his demons to no avail for more than two years now. It was something of a routine. But in recent months that routine had begun to take its toll on her, made clear by the stress marks growing prominent on her face, which otherwise should’ve been perfect and smooth in its fresh youth._

_Really, Louis knew it was his fault for being so clearly distraught, giving her reason to worry._

_It was a very vicious circle._

_“I thought this trip was supposed to be our goodbye to guilt,” Clara had kept saying, “I thought we came here because you wanted us to start living for tomorrow. I thought we came here to make peace with ourselves, to make peace with Paul’s death!”_

_“We did, you’re right,” Louis replied, quick and despondent, ready to say anything to stop his sister from crying on what was supposed to be a special night for her._

_“Then why are you still doing this to me?!” Clara gasped accusingly, but she caught herself and her frown softened with regret. “I’m sorry… that’s not what I meant,” she rectified. “It’s just that… Louis, please… the guilt wasn’t supposed to follow us here.”_

But the guilt had followed them, for it could not be left behind. Louis’s guilt was to him as his legs or his hands – a fundamental part of his very being. It had been for so long, like a dark guardian on his shoulder, that he could scarcely recall life before it. Maybe there vague memories of such a time, the earliest ones he had, when Clara had been but an infant. But that was when he was naïve to the ways of the world, to the realities of mortality, before he’d experienced devastation and forgone faith.   

And even before that. Even as he’d grown into a young man, he’d also grown into that importunate thought of “no matter how hard you try, it’s not enough”: the realization that he would never be exactly what his parents wanted of him. And for that he too felt guilt.

Louis had been an exemplary son, of course, smart and polite, good-looking, but first he was never confident enough, and then not suave or social enough, and then not ruthless enough, and always not happy enough.

Then, after his father’s death, Louis had admittedly felt relieved to be liberated from his critical eyes. He thought he might find some happiness in his newfound freedom, some solace in the distraction of devoting his whole body to work. However, that feeling had not been meant to last, because soon afterwards came the new and utterly overwhelming guilt that was born from finding relief in his own father’s death.

What a monster he had felt like then, let alone after Paul’s…

Later he almost attempted to pin the blame elsewhere. It was like he was possessed or cursed, he wanted to think, and he had half a mind to call a priest for an exorcism. He wasn’t cursed though, he was weak and well aware of it. There was not much more to it. So, instead he simply let the wretchedness consume him, because there was a certain sort of comfort, an ease in doing so. It was familiar, just like his and Clara’s routine.    

Guilt, Louis was used to, and though he had hoped France would give him a moment’s peace from it, he’d expected nothing more. Demons did not take such long holidays after all.

So, knowing all this, what could Louis have said to Clara?

The hypocritical truth?

_“I’m sorry, you know I am,” he’d whispered with true remorse. “It was never my intention to ruin this night for you.” Then, he repeated the phrase which had initially set her off, because to him it made sense, and there was nothing more that could be done. “I just can’t help feeling that he should be here with us …”_

_“Louis, be quiet!” Clara spat, cutting him off. “I am so tired of hearing that! I am so, so tired! Please, don’t say it anymore! What would Mother tell you?!”_

_She would side with Clara of course, he knew, though not nearly as kindly, reminding Louis that he cannot afford to be a martyr when he has a household to care for and a plantation to run._

_There was no need to give this thought voice however; it was a rhetorical question, so he let her keep going._

_“Don’t you see?” Clara pressed, her cheeks rose-kissed and glossy with tears. “You beg me not to leave you, but you’re the one who is leaving, Louis! Just as Paul left us, now you wish to leave!”_

_Louis was shaken by her words, not expecting them to ring so true. He panicked, offended, and bit when he should’ve bowed._

_“That’s not true!” he spat, because of course it was true. “How could you say that to me? You really think I’d leave you? Where would I go?!”_

_A terrible question. He knew the answer, and evidently so did she._

_Clara buried her face in her hands and sobbed, a few strands of hair beginning to loosen from the clutches of her pins, falling to her shoulders like threads from a fraying piece of cloth. She hunched over slightly and turned towards the door of the stagecoach, and immediately Louis felt the need to reach for her. So, he clenched her shoulder in a kind of physical apology._

_“Clara,” he said, quietly now, cautiously. “I could not leave you or Mother. Please, never doubt that.”_

_Clara tore her palms away from her now blotchy face and tightened her lips to hold back the sounds of her distress. Then, as though she’d only half heard him, she latched onto the arm holding her and begged, “Please, Louis, don’t go! Don’t let it take you! I could not bear to lose you – not you too!”_

_“Shhh, Clara, I’m staying,” he’d hushed her. “So, long as you’re here I’m staying. But you are not meant to carry my burdens. You are meant to live your life and be happy.”_

_“And what of you?” she’d wept. “Are you meant to be miserable? Is it your job to carry that burden alone? And if so, then why? Why should I be happy while you should not? I don’t understand it!”_

_Neither did Louis, really. He knew only that it came naturally to him and that it was easiest; he did not know whether it was the right thing to do or not, and, honestly, that was the worst part. Still, he saw no other option. He knew no other way. So, he could do nothing else._

_Just then the stagecoach had come to a stop and Louis looked to Clara with eyes beseeching her to drop the subject._

_He had no reply to her questions, because he knew there was nothing he could say that would make her understand. So, instead he could only pray self-preservation would kick in, and she would move on for her own sake rather than continuing to argue for his._

 

 

And Clara did not bring up it up again that night. Instead, what she did was waste her time fussing about and sticking to Louis’s side like a burr on his jacket, making it all too evident that, though she did not speak her mind, her brother’s burden was very much on it.

Candidly, and from the moment they’d entered the Palace of Versailles, Louis had longed to shake Clara off, to shoo her away towards a night that was supposed to be straight out of her fantasies, and to purge her from his pestilential presence.  However, to do so would also be to serve her on a platter to the bachelordom of France, and so the notion was bittersweet and went unattended at first. What’s more, Louis was loath to leave her for fear of sabotaging the night (or the week) beyond repair, should she come after him.

But despite trying his best to drown it out with wine, that anxious selfishness of his emerged after a few hours under Clara’s watchful eyes, and he realized he could take it no more.

Deep down Louis knew that to stay with his sister would be the ultimate disservice, both to her and to the memory of Paul. He’d done his part to bring Clara all the way to France, but now his effort was melting into something null and transparent, because her sisterly love and loyalty to him was sure to be the death of her, and how else could he prevent it? Why should he want to? He breathed it.    

But hadn’t it been a lack of love and loyalty on Louis’s part which ended up being the death of Paul? If his cynicism had killed one sibling already, why shouldn’t the other be next?

 

 

_“But it was not your fault,” Clara would’ve said._

_“But the future has no time for the past,” his mother might admonish._

_“But you cannot afford to be weak,” his father had always scolded him in life._

_“But you killed me!” Paul still screeched. Over and over he yelled, his voice continuously reverberating within the confines of his skull, even right that very moment, steadily growing louder and louder with time. “I am dead, because of you, Louis! Dead, dead, dead! Because of you, you, you!”_

 

 

Again, the scorching pain in the pit of Louis’s head bloomed, flashes of crimson fizzled in and out on the black backdrop of his eyelids, and when he opened them once more, he found the image remained: blood red roses on a blackened skyline, not unlike the ones growing around the abandoned oratory on the grounds of Pointe du Lac.  

Clara’s words came to him again:

 

 

“ _The guilt wasn’t supposed to follow us here.”_

 

 

And then from behind someone cleared their throat.  

Louis was so caught off guard that he nearly jumped out of his skin, and the tensing of his body caused a striking pain to cut through the throbbing in his head as it passed, leaving him dizzy and unstable on his feet.

“Uh… yes?” he gasped as he moved to face whoever was intruding on his solitude, unable to hide his shock.

The first thing Louis noticed about the man standing before him was his impressive stature. Not that he, himself was short by any means - Louis was technically considered above average in height, but this man was clearly on the upper end of that same scale. The next thing he noticed was that the man looked to be roughly the same age as him and then that, even in the dark of the night, his hair, which was tied near the top of his neck, sat as a shining mane of golden curls around his face, almost vociferous in their vibrancy.   

“I apologize,” the man said, bowing slightly, a smirk of amusement tugging at his lips, no doubt withholding a laugh at Louis’s shock. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“I wasn’t frightened,” Louis defended weakly. “I was…” Suddenly realizing he was picking a losing battle, he changed tactics. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Can I help you?” 

“My name is Le… Lelio,” the man said, stumbling over his name as if he’d momentarily forgotten it. “Lelio de Valois,” then he added, “I serve at the palace. I was just… checking the gardens for intruders when I happened upon you here.”

“Lelio,” Louis uttered thoughtfully, cagily, recognizing the name at once. “Like the character from _commedia dell’arte?”_

“Yes, exactly!” the man, Lelio, proclaimed, grinning broadly and almost manically. “That is, my father was once an actor and he named me after his favorite portrayal,” he explained in a hurry. “It’s also how I came to work for the royal family. My father’s blood.”

“I see.”

Truth be told, Louis wasn’t sure what to make of this information. He hadn’t exactly asked for it, but then again, in a way he had. Honestly, he just hoped that if he kept his end of the conversation brief, then he would be left to his own devices again all the sooner.

But Lelio was undeterred, and he went on. “You are a guest of the Queen’s, I take it. After all, you are far too nicely dressed for a thief.”        

“My name is Louis de Pointe du Lac,” Louis relented, noticing his rudeness a bit too late.

Recognition rose to Lelio’s face.

“Yes, of course, yours is the family from New Orleans, isn’t it?” he stated more than asked. “I have heard of you once or twice before.”  

“Oh?” Louis was trying to be polite, but by then the pounding in his head had spread and gained a steady, unrelenting tempo, and it was making it difficult to form proper sentences, let alone to dwell on decorum. Instinctively, he raised a hand to knead the space between his eyes, attempting to alleviate the pain there if only temporarily. Instead though, the world began to spin beneath his feet.   

“Pardon me for saying this, Monsieur, but you don’t look so well,” Lelio observed, his tone cushioned, and he took a step forward and put his hands up as though he suspected Louis might collapse in front of him right then and there.  

“Perhaps you should lie down.”

“I’m fine,” Louis lied with practiced ease, but his voice came out shaky and lacked its usual conviction. “The crowd was making me claustrophobic and I needed some fresh air, that’s all. It will pass.”

Lelio narrowed his eyes and his lips contorted in obvious disbelief. Then, with little regard for Louis’s personal space, he leaned in to get a closer look at his face.

“You’re fine, you say?” he asked sarcastically. “Could’ve fooled me; you’re as pale as Death, himself! I mean honestly, if this is your idea of ‘fine’ then maybe I should fetch a coffin, because surely you’re a vampire... Ah, but wouldn’t that make quite the story? A vampire invited to the Palace of Versailles! Now I almost wish it were true!”   

If not for the searing pain in his head, Louis might’ve cracked a smile at that, because Lelio seemed so genuinely intrigued by the notion that it was almost comical to behold.   

“No such luck, I’m afraid,” he said instead. “What ails me is not a thirst for blood, but for blood-red wine.”

Lelio tsk’d a few times and nodded in understanding. 

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” he chuckled. “Then perhaps you should lie down after all. I can show you to one of our spare rooms if you’d like.”  

“There’s no need,” Louis argued, glancing towards the palace, looking for an excuse to escape. “I should be getting back to my sister actually. She must be worried.”     

“Now, now,” Lelio said in a condescending coo, and his tone would’ve had Louis bristling guardedly if he’d the energy. “I must implore you to reconsider. You will be of no use to your sister if you collapse from inebriation. Besides, there is no safer place in all of France for a girl to be than here.”  

Somewhat annoyed by his persistence, Louis had to wonder why this man should even care whether he collapsed or not. Maybe he was merely doing his duty as a servant of the royal family, attending to their guests devotedly, but then Louis thought it still wasn’t his business. And besides, for a servant, Lelio seemed rather too adept at bossing people around.

Louis had half a mind to tell him off for it.       

“No, thank you, I am fine,” he declined again, taking special precaution to make sure his tone did not reveal his irritation. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really should be getting back.” With that, he moved to step past him.

Of course, while Louis’s voice may not have betrayed him, his body certainly did, as right then a particularly painful throb blurred his vision and upset his center of gravity, sending him stumbling over his own feet and directly into the other man.

Lelio inhaled sharply and grabbed Louis’s shoulders, steadying him, and when Louis looked at him to apologize, he found all the mirth was gone from Lelio’s face, replaced instead by something unnamed.    

“I… I’m sorry,” Louis said, taking a step back and out of his hold, “I’m just…”

“Hopelessly drunk,” Lelio finished for him, his expression turning resolute, eyes fill with something ferocious and feral. “It’s decided then. Follow me and we’ll get you settled into a room where you can sleep this off.”

Relenting to the fact that he was in no position to protest, Louis nodded his assent.

The world was still tilting all around him and he could barely control his limbs. He felt himself sway again and clasped a hand over his mouth, but Lelio held his shoulder securely and began to usher him towards the servant’s entrance without a second’s hesitation. He did not have time enough to be ill.

“To avoid the crowd,” Lelio whispered as he guided him purposefully through a plain, but decently sized room where the servants must have done much of their work.

The walls were white and undecorated, save for a few flowers and herbs that were sitting in baskets hung from the ceiling. The room was quiet and mostly unoccupied, but in the corner a stove was roaring with life and a large pot was billowing the smell of something hearty into the air, a stew of some sort. If not for the commotion of them passing through, it might’ve been a serene scene.

They passed by a maid on their way whose face was fitted with fear when she spotted Lelio, like she’d just come upon Saint Michael in her home and realized she’d forgotten to clean up. She said nothing, but as Louis met her eyes before she turned back to the silver she was polishing and they were gone through the doorway, he thought she’d regarded him as one might regard a man walking to the guillotine. But he was not sober enough to think much of it.        

The narrow hallway they moved through next led to an even narrower staircase. Here Lelio maneuvered Louis in front, and with one hand to his back he all but pushed him up the steps. The wooden stairs shifted and creaked uncertainly below their feet as they ascended, amplified by the tightness of the space, and Louis found himself with his hands sliding over either wall as if to stop them from closing in on him, or to keep himself from falling. 

Through what appeared to be a hole in the wall, they emerged into a long, lavish hall of doors, and despite his dizziness, Louis couldn’t help but breathe it all in.

The overdressed interior floored him. He was no stranger to excess, but the palace was more than that, it was excess in excess – pastel rococo decadence caked in ivory and gold – and it was so much that he almost hated them for it.  

“Nearly there,” Lelio assured, not bothering to ask before he wrapped an arm under Louis’s in support, not at all impressed by the palace in which he spent his day to day.

They continued down the hall of doors, each closed off and mysterious, especially in their elegance, until finally Lelio guided him to one door in particular and pushed his way inside. 

The room was wrapped in ornate, jade wallpaper, encompassing a bed with a creamy silk duvet and canopy of matching materials. Much of the space was littered with paintings, portraits. But embedded in one wall was a fireplace topped by a mirror as tall as the ceiling, and as Louis followed the length of it with his gaze, he was immediately drawn to the colored lights bouncing off the chandelier hanging overhead.

“It’s rather modest, I’m afraid,” Lelio said, depositing him on the bed.

Louis laughed humorlessly, too intoxicated to help himself. 

“Modest?” he asked dubiously.  

“For this palace, yes, but it shall serve its purpose.”  

Louis could certainly attest to that. The bed was pliable and inviting as it depressed below his weight. It was calling him, tempting him to sink fully in. And here, so far from the crowd was a pleasant hush that very nearly lulled him to sleep right then and there, but he was not yet alone, so he forced himself to remain coherent. At least as coherent as one can hope to be after consuming an unwise amount of wine. 

“Is there anything else you should need?” Lelio offered dutifully, stepping back with a look of intrigued disquiet. “Water, maybe?”

“No, you’ve already done more than enough for me, thank you,” Louis said, just wanting him gone.

Lelio gave a thoughtful hum.  

“I shall have a servant bring a pitcher,” he decided anyway, heading towards the door, presumably to do just that.

“Um, well actually…” Louis had just remembered Clara. “About my sister…”

Lelio looked to him again and smiled reassuringly, or so it was meant to be, but Louis found himself less than reassured.

“Do not worry, Monsieur, I shall take care of everything,” he said and motioned to the bed. “Now please, rest.”

Louis went to protest again, ready to argue that perhaps it was best for him to handle the matter alone after all. But on second thought, he could hardly keep his eyes open, and when they were he saw only the rotation of the Earth as he was never meant to. He felt his stomach lurch, and when he caught the scent of alcohol on his own breath it made him sicker. Standing, walking even seemed a daunting task. 

Besides, as much as he worried for Clara, she was more than capable of taking care of herself, at least in regards to dealing with strangers. And in this drunken moment especially, she was far more well-equipped to fight off an “attack” than Louis could’ve hoped to be.

“Thank you,” he settled with saying, bowing his head slightly.

Lelio’s smile hitched up a fraction, and, after returning the bow, he left, but not before closing the door quietly and very deliberately behind him.   

Once concealed from unfamiliar eyes, Louis let out a great sigh and kicked off his shoes, tossing his jacket haphazardly to land beside them on the floor.

Lying down, he felt the world tilt on its axis and then back again, repeatedly swirling and blurring his vision. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore it, but even while willingly blinded, the sensation of spinning persisted. And soon he was taken, swept away by a downward spiral...    

 

 

[…]

 

 

_The air sat stale and odorless and utterly devoid. A voice would not echo, might not even make a sound, and that pure silence drew focus away from the world, towards the fact that, yes, he was here, and yes, he was living. He could feel it in the churning of his organs, in the hollow thudding of his heart that reverberated through his spine and into the column of his throat. Choking him._

_Underfoot, the floor was marble._

_Then upon second glance it was the night sky dulled by a rolling fog, a fog which sat so high and so unyieldingly opaque that it acted as a shroud for whatever lay above. Perhaps it was another sky, or perhaps the two had traded places in mocking, vertiginous rebellion, and whatever gods were tasked with watching him were laughing at this depraved little trick of the mind. Or perhaps a great beast hovered there beyond the clouds, a dragon as enraged as an immortal sentenced to solitary confinement until the great end._

_Somewhere, someone flipped an hourglass._

_He began walking, because there was nothing else he could do. He did not know where he was, nor did he not know. He merely was where he was and that was all. No answers, because there were no questions (at least not yet), there just was. And walking seemed the obvious thing to do. So, he walked._

_At first he was nothing but numbness, and he traveled without purpose or urgency. However, with each step his feet gradually grew heavier and heavier, sinking into the ground, until finally it seemed as though rather than moving his own body, he was attempting to move the earth with his feet._

_There was a great gravity depressing him, and as he walked on it forced him to lean forward, for his spine was yielding to the pressure. And he felt he was dragging a bolder twice his size by a rope over the shoulder._

_And in that same moment he realized that he was knee deep in the wastes of what looked like a Louisiana swamp, but black, deprived of color sans the speckle of stars like drops of gold paint. Each was unmoving, fixed in place despite the wavering flux of the darkness surrounding. The liquid was but a pane of glass, a window showing what lay above the fog._

_An eerie chill cut through him, revitalized his rationality, and he panicked at the image – the thought of what was hidden there, what could be snapping at his legs given not a moment’s notice. He scrambled for the trunk of a nearby tree, using it as leverage to pull himself up to stand on its protruding roots, out of the would-be water and mud._

_Yet, there was nowhere to go from there. He was trapped if he did not press on through the fear. So, he waited for the beating of his heart to stop its deafening thunder, and he watched as the ripples he’d made on the swampy surface fanned out and disappeared._

_The water did not continue to quake as one might expect it to when inhabited by the reptiles and fish native to Louisiana. It merely sat, returned to its state of unnerving rest._

_This observation should have brought him some solace. It meant that there were none of the recognizable dangers hidden below. But the unknown was never a comfort. It was only fodder for fear and the helpful veil to an unfamiliar threat._

_Still, with no other option, he stepped back in._

_Staring into that inky black wetness, he was bewitched by how it swelled and surged around his legs, lapping at the material of his breeches, but not quite clinging as water would. Curiously, he tested the surface with his fingers, feeling a resistance to it as it embraced all that he offered. And once his hand was submerged he felt a slight, but steady suction calling out to him, begging him to come completely below, to dunk himself into this bizarre, chaotic quicksand._

_He pulled his hand out as though burned and stumbled back, eyes wide and fixed to the spot where he’d just been._

_Suddenly, the thought of standing there waiting to be devoured flooded his mind._

_He pressed on with little more than that thought, using the roots and logs to help propel forward, and though he felt as if he were making no progress, this time he did not stop again until he came upon a wooden platform protruding from the swamp._

_With what strength he could muster, he made a great leap and hauled himself up upon it. And only then, when he was finally free from its grasp, did he realize how terrified he’d truly been of that midnight substance. For the numbness had now depleted, and in its place he was left with the soreness that comes following a week of fever and uncontrollable tremors._

_The platform stretched forward into the fog, a path of old wood mottled with mold and graying moss. The boards bowed below his weight as he forced himself back to his feet, made soft by moisture and the most corrosive substance known to man: time. He couldn’t trust it to hold for certain, but the fear of plunging back into the liquid sky below was far more bearable than the actuality of standing within it, of being at its mercy. The very thought had him suffocating._

_With much patience he progressed down the walkway, wary of cracks and missing boards._

_One particular step was not quite careful enough however, as his boot torn through the wood like rice paper, and he fell, dipping his foot for but a moment before dragging himself back up and away._

_His chest ached. He clenched it and gasped for breath, staring at the hole he’d just made, expecting a demon might soon crawl through it. But nothing came, so he stood again and trudged on a fraction faster than he had been._

_Before long, he could make out an orange glow on the horizon, the only color he’d seen since the gold of the swampy stars. It was not the sunrise, though for a moment he’d tricked himself into believing as much. Instead it was the blaze of fire as it ravaged the land – every colorless tree and plant alike alight, now tinted that dubious shade of disaster._

_It hadn’t been fog on the swamp after all, he realized, but smoke._

_Just past the threshold of the inferno he could make out the silhouette of a large, two story building. Touched by decay and displacement, it did not look as it should, it was not even on the rightful property, but he knew it nonetheless._

_It was home._

_And inside, someone screamed. Someone he knew. Someone he loved._

_He made a run for it, indifferent to the fact that the fire did not singe him as he cut a straight line through it, that he could not feel any semblance of anguish where there should’ve been melting skin and death. All that mattered was getting to that someone._

_As he approached he was astonished to find the house untouched by the fire, as decrepit as it was. Yet somehow he got the feeling something much worse was prowling around inside, something hungry and looking to claim his family home for itself._

_His stride slowed._

_Then he heard the scream again, much louder this time._

_“Stop it!” it cried out. “Leave me alone!”_

Stop what?  _He wanted to shout._ What is after you? _But he found he had no voice, so he pushed through the front entrance and stood there, waiting for the screams to come again._

_He felt helpless, aimless and useless. With no way of speaking he could not let them know he was there, that he was searching for them. He spun on the spot and moved to wrap a hand around his uncooperative throat in his frustration, but found that when he tried, it passed through the space where his neck should’ve been just as easily as he had moved through the flames before._

_Petrified by this, he ran to a room he knew held a mirror, but when he looked into its glossy surface the image of the nothingness was there, not his reflection, just as it had been in the waters of the swamp. And as he looked around, he saw that every reflective surface showed that same image. From the brass of the doorknobs, to the waxed tabletops and the translucent copy of his own outline, stained to the glass of the windows._

_And it was then that the scream again echoed through the house, this time down the stairs and directly into his head._

_He remembered where it was coming from suddenly, as one occasionally remembers bits and pieces of a dream. But he was not remembering a dream. Just the past._

_“Paul!” he called out as he sprinted towards stairs, shocked by the plangent resonance of his renewed voice._

_He stopped at the base, struck still by the sight of his little brother standing on the top step, the fierce blue eyes he’d inherited from their father glaring down, flickering with the lights of the most searing fire imaginable._

_“Stop it! Don’t speak anymore!” Paul wailed at him. “Leave me alone, demon!”_

_“Demon?!” he heard himself yell back, but he had not moved his mouth, and there was an otherworldly dissonance in the dueling tones enwrapping the word._

_“Yes, demon! Only a demon could condemn their kin as you’ve condemned me!”_

_Paul stomped his foot, and it sent a quake through the foundation of the house._ _The walls began to crack and chips of plaster and paint fell around them. A deep rumbling was constantly playing somewhere off in the distance, growing louder by the second. Fire flickered in and out of existence, as though their very home was a portal to the gates of Satan’s province._

_“I did not wish for this,” he said of his own accord this time. His voice much more his own, poignant and low. "I did not mean to condemn you."_

_“But I rot in Hell by your doing!” Paul spat back. “The unnatural cause of my death was the work of your curse! You cursed me, Louis!”_

_Louis felt the floor shift again and he hobbled forward and fell onto the steps._

_With a groan of pain, he glanced back up towards Paul only to find that beside where he had landed sat the deformed, twisted up body of his brother – those Atlantic blue depths wide and devoid of light, his neck tilted to a disturbing angle, his legs bent wrong and his head cracked wide._

_Louis moaned in horror and threw himself back, unable to look away as the same liquid night of the swamps began to seep form his brother’s broken skull, a waterfall of ink creeping down the stairs at an unusually languid pace._

_And though he was surely gone from this world, Paul’s mouth still moved._

_“Follow me,” it told him. “I’m waiting for you here. Follow me.”_

_Then the ink began to spread rapidly, and in a second’s time it had swallowed everything barring Louis, who stood alone in the speckled darkness, lost there until again the hourglass was flipped._

_“Paul?” he spoke, a shattered whisper._

_Then a scream, and then another._

_“Paul! Paul!”_

_But Paul was gone, and just as he was calling out for his brother, someone else was calling for him. Someone in the waking world._

_Still, he did not stop._

_He could not._

 

 

[…]

 

 

If Lestat had thought the girl, Clara was an angel in the flesh, than surely her brother, Louis was a glance at God… or the angel of death or something like that. And suddenly, Lestat had the feeling he was about to be smote.

That is to say, Louis de Pointe du Lac had been a vision in black, from his hair to his clothes to his dark disposition, and he wore the color alarmingly well. He gave it the sort of life Lestat never thought the lack of light was capable of, even as he tripped over his own wine-numb legs and spoke in a detached, disinterested tone. Of course, it also helped that he was easily one of the most attractive men Lestat had ever laid eyes on. But at the same time, Lestat knew from experience that good looks can only go so far. And something about Louis was so much more than a pretty face; it was deeper, beautifully broken, like delicate spider web cracks in a mirror framed by silver.

It was a wonder – at first glance Lestat was so taken with him that he’d nearly forgotten the game and offered up his real name just like that!

_…_

_Alright, well perhaps good looks do go far enough._

Lestat was a man of simple pleasures after all, and so he could not deny being powerless to a pretty face.

Ah, but that was just it!

 _Damn that imp!_ he mentally cursed his cousin. 

Nearly half a decade ago now, Lestat thought Armand had lost his mind when he’d extended his stay in New Orleans indefinitely. Then even more so when he’d finally returned to France after two full years and bragged about his affair with a young, beautiful plantation owner – the very same plantation owner who just dumped his sorry ass!

Laughable, isn’t it?

But Lestat could no longer mock Armand; he could only damn him, because with that young, beautiful plantation owner now lingering in his mind’s eye, he had to admit that he empathized. Armand’s actions really weren’t so crazy at all. And if they were, well then Lestat was a hypocrite, which was only excusable on account of him  _also_  losing his damn mind!  

Plus, he was unabashedly jealous of the cur.

So, damn him.

Aside from that, it was only then that Lestat realized how truly shaken he was by the encounter. There were ghosts in that man’s voice, dark magic, or so he had wanted to accuse, because they had possessed him, and now he was nothing of the person he’d been before.

Lelio was forging a life of his own, one completely cut from the unsuspecting prince, who had no say in it.

Lestat may have taken their vessel to find Nicolas (he needed to tell someone after all, someone he trusted. Plus, he had some pent up “frustration” to be rid of), and then again towards the ball, but Lelio was the one who stopped them there at the door and listened. Lelio was the one who stuffed their head full of cotton and sewed an invisible veil of velvet over their face, a gate guarding them from the facility to feel. He was the one who kept them rooted to the spot, unable to move on from that compellingly romanticized, yet melancholic moment, unable to exist as he had at the start of the night. 

The one who remembered that they’d forgotten to send a maid for water…

 _He was drunk as hell!_  Lestat wanted to argue, but there was no one to argue with.  _I’ve been with Nicki for nearly two hours; he’s probably fast asleep by now!_

Still, Lelio denied the party, thinking only briefly of the sister he’d neglected inside.

He made for the servants quarters and grinned at their flabbergast faces as he filled a pitcher, procured a glass and all but ran upstairs.

Although to anyone else it must be pathetically, painfully plain to see, Lelio was not the one to blame here. Lelio was but a name. Lestat was the only ghost inside his body. His soul alone was the one possessing him – not some character called Lelio or some mortal God. But he was still in the midst of fooling himself. The pinnacle of method acting if there has ever been such a thing. Well, then he might’ve been it.   

One thing was for certain though; the maids weren’t gaping at Lelio the servant. They were gaping at Lestat the Prince. And even he could not deny that fact.  

No doubt, he thought, that the girl from earlier had already relayed what she saw – a truly unheard of occurrence, since Lestat had never before lifted a finger for anyone but himself... and perhaps Nicolas at some point. They all must be wondering what was wrong with him. Or what was so newly right.

It didn’t feel right though. It felt how being trampled must. It felt like death by natural disaster or like being eaten alive. It felt like thinking too long on the void, hearing it sound out the syllables of your name in a voice you’ve always longed to hear, then falling back to yourself and knowing that for a moment the end had been near enough to envision in intricate detail.

And as he walked through the halls, he realized he could all but hear it. That voice. And he thought he must be going mad.

There  _was_  a voice though, a real one, and it _was_  the one he longed to hear, just not in the right cadence. No yearning, no lust, just distress.

As well as he could while holding a pitcher of water, Lestat burst through the door with a start, only to find that his haste had been needless.

The object of his fixation was lying on his back, fully clothed above the duvet (sans his shoes and jacket) and still asleep, though unsoundly. His head was cocked to the side, jerking against the pillow anxiously, and he was sweating along his hairline as he called out the name “ _Paul!_ ”

Lestat set the pitcher on a table and returned to the bed, leaning over Louis’s prone figure, studying the worry lines on his forehead before deciding to wake him.

“Monsieur,” he said timidly at first, reluctant. But of course that was not nearly enough, so he said it again, much louder this time. “Monsieur!”   

Still nothing; Louis tossed his head to the other side and it almost looked like he was telling Lestat “no,” refusing to wake. And despite the pettiness of this gut reaction, Lestat could not help but feel woefully rejected.  

He grabbed Louis’s arm and shook him.

“Wake up, Monsieur,” he demanded. “It’s just a dream!”

And just like that green eyes shot open, watery and dazed as they stared up at him.

“Wha… who…” Louis stuttered and then sat up, forcing Lestat to back off. “Lelio?” he wondered through lidded eyes.  

 _“Oui, Monsieur,”_ Lestat confirmed, regarding him carefully. “I think you were having a nightmare.”

Louis blinked at him and then looked down, drawing a leg up to rest his elbow on as he began to rub the sleep from his eyes.

“A nightmare,” he repeated slowly, his voice groggy and disturbingly hollow as he stared starkly ahead.

It seemed to Lestat that he was trying to remember whatever it was he’d dreamt.

“You called out a name: Paul,” he said, hoping it might help. “Was that your brother?”

Louis’s eyes shot to him again, now burning with something new.

“How did you know that?”

“I didn’t,” Lestat covered too quickly. “It was just a lucky guess.”

Louis glared at him and sat up straight, clearly seeing through his lie (though only one of many, and not the right one at that).

“Don’t take me for a fool,” he spat. “You’ve been acting suspicious from the start. You’re hiding something. So, tell me.”   

 _If only you knew the half of it_ , Lestat wanted to say. And then he wanted to laugh.  

If at any point in the story Lelio was to get smote, this would probably be it. No lightning pierced through the sky to strike him though. No plague of locusts came down to devour his flesh. No hellfire consumed him, though he swore if it had, it would’ve been the same shade of jade currently blazing within this man’s eyes. 

Lestat tried to picture a confessional as he spoke, suddenly unwilling to add another lie to the list.

“At the gala I saw a girl overcome by grief,” he explained in a rush of words. “I begged her to share her troubles with me, so she told me of her two brothers, one dead and one dying. Turns out the ‘one dying’ was you, Monsieur.”

Louis’s expression morphed from anger to fear and then to shame.

“Oh, Clara,” he said as he heaved a heavy sigh.

“I promised I would look after you for her,” Lestat added for good measure. “She was so distraught that it broke my heart. I just wanted her to enjoy the party. I wanted to see her smile.”

Louis groaned weakly at that and pushed a hand through his hair.

“And she told you not to tell me,” he stated knowingly.  

Lestat nodded, glad to share the blame.  

Obviously this was not Clara’s first offense either.     

With his inhibitions now lowered by a sleep addled brain on top of the remnants of wine, not to mention this newly discovered breach of his privacy, Louis’s typical gentlemanly demeanor was nowhere to be found. Not in voice or expression.

“My familial issues are none of your concern, and I’ll ask you to keep it that way,” he told Lestat unkindly, refusing now to meet his gaze. “My sister is merely being melodramatic.” There was a scoff. “I am not ‘dying.’”  

“Beg your pardon, Monsieur, but you kid yourself,” Lestat hissed in spontaneous retaliation, irritated by his flippant reply. “Even a blind man could see how  _unwell_  you are! At the very least they’d hear it when you speak your brother’s name!”

“I am perfectly well,” Louis argued, fully awaked by this time and on the defensive.

He was still avoiding Lestat’s eyes, for even he must not have believed what he said.    

Lestat was the one glaring this time. His hands tightened into fists – he wanted to knock some sense into the man! What a sin it was to be so nonchalant, so dismissive while the angelic Clara was tearing herself up for him! Was he a God? Maybe, but a selfish one at that!

“Well-off people are not mourned by their loved ones!” he shot back. “Have you not so much as considered your sister’s feelings? Would you deprive her of both brothers?”

A pause.

Something hung in the air. It was a revelation, the publication of Lestat’s assumptions, of what Clara said to cause him to draw such conclusions.    

“If you knew half as much as you presume to,” Louis growled through his teeth, “then you’d swallow your own damn tongue. I did not come to France to be critiqued by a stranger.”  

“Then it is your turn to tell me the truth,” Lestat insisted. “Right now all I am seeing is stubbornness! A brother who left his sister crying at a ball! Are you just that selfish?!”

Louis bristled and stood from the bed, leveling the playing field and at last meeting Lestat’s eyes.

“I did not ask for her tears, nor did I ask for your input,” he shouted, “especially not when you know nothing of which you speak! I’ve done everything for my sister’s happiness, everything! I live for it! But it’s not enough for her! She’s shackled me with righteous guilt!”

“And what have you done?” Lestat goaded, narrowing his eyes, not quite believing.     

“Everything!” Louis told him again. “But what she wants of me is the one thing I truly cannot give her!  If I could, I would have done it long ago, don’t you see?!”  

His hands were shaking. He looked about ready to collapse or even sob, but Lestat couldn’t bring himself to let up. He was hungry for it.

“But what is the source of your devotion to her… to guilt?” he asked, feeling an odd calmness all of the sudden. “Why must you cling so desperately to it? Surely your sister does not wish it.”

Louis’s expression turned pained, even more so than before, and he fixed Lestat with reluctant eyes as he surrendered to the situation. He sat back on the bed.

“But she does wish it,” he confessed, hanging his head, “because I almost  _did_  die – over a year ago now, but it’s still fresh in everyone’s minds, especially Clara’s. But she should know I would never allow myself so close to the edge again. It doesn’t matter how I feel. I’ve tried so hard to prove it. She should know...”

Lestat gaped, for that he truly had not expected to hear.

“You almost died?” His words were breathless, unsure, for Gods should be immortal, untouched by demise, even if surrounded by it, and anything otherwise was simply unthinkable. “But how?”   

Louis seemed somewhat exasperated, but his rage had fled back into remorse and he resigned to that too.   

“After what happened to Paul I… gave up, became a drunk,” he explained, his tone dull and outwardly disengaged, blasé, though he struggled around the words. “I invited death, and it nearly found me in the form of a knife to the chest. I’d cheated a man out of his money and I wanted to repay him with my life.”

Whether the gesture was unconscious or not, Lestat could not be sure, but as he said this Louis placed his hand over a spot near his collar bone and rubbed.

“Clara, of course, was a wreck when I stumbled home and the whole time after. She rarely left my bedside while I recovered, but she refused to speak to me until I’d begged for exoneration and gave her my promise.”   

“And so you owe her?” Lestat pressed. “This is righteous guilt?”

Louis nodded. “Yes. I betrayed her that night. She no longer trusts me.”

Seeing now that the past he was prying into was much more complicated than he’d anticipated, Lestat was taken by regret.

“I’m sorry.” He genuinely was. “It was not my place. I just…”        

“No, I’m sorry,” Louis said brokenly. “It’s not every day that a complete stranger forcefully exposes my wounds like that. I might’ve handled it better… but given the timing…”  

“But it seems to me…” Lestat cut himself short, hesitant to say what was on his mind. But he’d already begun. “It seems to me your sister only wishes for your happiness. Not your servitude.” 

Louis sighed through his nose at that.  

“I can force myself to live for her easily enough, because I love her, and I owe it to her,” he said, “but I cannot force myself to enjoy that life any more than I do. I’ve no idea how. She must learn to let it go.”  

Lestat tried to gather his thoughts by sifting through the emotions, but the task was intimidating and all too revealing. The King’s forthcoming death suddenly seemed a great calamity overlooked.

“Too much misfortune for one family,” he mumbled mostly to himself. “But in my opinion if you spend your life doing everything for other people, then you might as well be dead. It does more harm than good. It’s selfish.”  

Louis gave him an odd look – something stuck between annoyed and analytical, and Lestat thought he might try to counter his words, but suddenly his face twisted in alarm.

“What time is it?” he asked, moving as if to stand once more on still swaying legs. “Clara, she…!”

“Relax.” Lestat was quick to subdue, a hand upon Louis’s shoulder to stop him from getting up. “You’ve only been here for a bit over two hours. Your sister is still enjoying the party. When the time comes I will bring her to another room in this same hall and the two of you can spend the night here. ”

Louis was obviously skeptical, but still too drunk to argue anymore.

“That won’t be a problem?”  

His headache must have begun to swell again, for his placed his hand over his eyes and took a long, steadying breath.

“Of course not,” Lestat chuckled lightly, showing his warmest, most inviting smile, the same as he had done for Clara not long before. He walked over to the table as he continued to speak, pouring the water. “It’s the reason for these vacant rooms. By all means, we could send for your things and you and your sister could spend the rest of the week here if you’d like.”

Returning to the bed, he offered the glass.

Louis looked as though he was about to object again, accepting the water all the same, but he did not get the chance.

“Lestat!” someone was calling from just beyond the door, turning both their heads. “Lestat, where are you?”

There was a beat of silence.  

“Nicolas…”

 _He sounds incredibly unhappy,_ Lestat had the presence of mind to observe.

“Nicolas?” Louis wondered, drawing his attention back just as he downed the water, leading Lestat’s eye to the bob of his throat.   

“De Lenfent,” Lestat said, managing to tear his gaze away by accepting the glass and moving to return it to the table. “He is my…” _Advisor, the real one_ , he almost admitted, again but a step away from the truth. “Friend and associate,” he settled for instead. Not technically a lie. “It seems the Prince is still missing.”

Louis made a sound like a laugh, short and airy, but bordering more on a sneer.  

“The Prince is missing from his own party?” he asked, incredulous.  

Again, Lestat wanted to let out a laugh of his own.

“Not truly missing,” he said in place, “but avoiding his responsibilities, yes.”  

Louis rolled his eyes and settled back against the bed frame.

“He’s just as I’ve heard then, isn’t he?”   

 _What exactly have you heard?_  Lestat wanted to press for more.

Was it the typical story? Like the blonde at the ball, did Louis too believe Lestat was simply a spoiled brat of a Prince? That he could be broken down so basically? Was it Armand who’d given out that impression? Was it Lestat’s blatant refusal to settle down, his need for excitement and purpose, which seemed now to be public knowledge? Was it really just because he’d “ditched” one, superfluous party (or that he was allegedly planning to ditched seven more)? 

Well, he supposed at the very least it was all this.  

“Lestat!” came Nicki’s impatient voice again, halting that train of thought.

It was time to cut this short, as reluctant as he was to do so.

Enraged, enraptured – it’s strange how well the two complement each other. Just as Lelio was beginning to hate this man, he found himself longing to see him again. And he would. Tomorrow. He’d make sure of it. But for now he had to relinquish control back to his good friend, the Prince.

They’d come to an intermission.      

“Regretfully, this is where I must go,” so Lestat said.

Louis’s expression straightened and sobered, though his blood was surely still soaked in wine, but the action seemed conscious and ritual in its sudden, smooth transition.

“Somehow,” he breathed the word, “I do not think this is the last we will be seeing of each other, Monsieur Lelio.”

Well, Lestat certainly hoped it wouldn’t be. It was hard to say whether or not that sentiment was reciprocated (he was leaning towards “not” to be quite frank), but he didn’t plan to let this conquest go anytime soon either way. He always had fancied a good challenge after all, especially a beautiful one. And one that would piss his cousin off.  

Of course, he couldn’t very well say that aloud, now could he?

Instead he settled for a polite smile, an acknowledgement of what an obvious truth that was, but nothing more. And with a bow he made to go.  

“Nicolas, my friend!” Lestat cried in an exaggerated fashion, opening the door just enough to slip through without revealing the room’s occupant. “Allow me to aid you in your search!” 

 

 

[…]

 

 

Standing in the hall, Nicolas was markedly unimpressed with Lestat’s display. His arms crossed over his chest, his face not placid as it had been during their earlier discussion or when they’d been undressed, but tight and distrusting.

“So, this is where you’re hiding him,  _Prince_ ,” he stated more than asked.

“Quiet, Nicki, he might hear you,” Lestat whispered, pressing a finger to his mouth as he grasped Nicolas’s elbow and began to lead them away.

Like before, Lestat was rather shaken, and from the outburst of emotion he felt drained. He didn’t want near the guests. He wanted a quiet place to think, to remember and romanticize. And he wanted, so terribly, for Nicki to understand.

But Nicolas was already chiding him.

“You are insufferable, you know that?” he hissed under his breath. “Someone is going to recognize you. There are portraits of you all over the Palace, Lestat. You’re lucky it hasn’t happened already.”

“Childhood portraits mostly. Besides, a portrait is hardly proof,” Lestat argued, now heading in the direction of his private rooms. “Lelio and the Prince merely bear an uncanny resemblance is all. A simple explanation is a believable explanation.”

“You think so?” Nicolas said sarcastically. “And what if Armand decides to pay a visit? That is his former lover you’re attempting to seduce, may I remind you.”

Lestat refused to answer, and so the silence was pregnant with bitter tension. Once they finally reached his rooms however, he hurriedly led them inside and shut the door. Pressing his back against it, he showed Nicolas a disappointed scowl.

“Armand won’t come,” he said. “He despises me. Besides, you said so yourself, Louis is his former lover, not current. Why would Armand risk sullying his post-matrimonial bliss for the man who sent him home?” 

“You said so yourself,” Nicki mocked Lestat’s cadence, his own tone a disparity in its staidness. “He despises you. And that man, that creole,” – he pointed in the general direction from which they came – “was the one to end things between them. Not Armand.”     

Nicolas did have a fair point.

Armand loved Louis long after he was coldly rejected by him. He’d spent two years wooing his way around New Orleans for him, only to be dismissed one day, just like that, and yet whenever he spoke of Louis it was obvious that he was forever smitten, that he held no grudges.

Still, Lestat was certain that Armand’s disdain for him would keep him far, far away.

 “What’s the matter, Nicki?” He smiled smarmily. “Am I detecting a hint of jealousy?”

Nicolas punched his shoulder at that, hard, and he knew he deserved it.   

“Don’t flatter yourself, Lestat. What we had is done. What we  _have_  is an arrangement. But still I am always the one forced to clean up your messes. Have you thought of that?”

Lestat rubbed his shoulder and his smile turned to more of a pout.

“I haven’t made a mess.”  

“Yet,” Nicki said. “But you will. You always do.”

Lestat rolled his eyes and decided that he would not argue anymore for the night. It was getting old.  

Arguing with Nicolas especially had always been a colossal waste of time, though they continued to do it rather often. Of course, this was one of the many reasons Lestat knew they were never meant to be more than what they were. No matter how he thought he loved his Nicki, his one true friend, it was not the love he was intended to seek. In Nicki, Lestat would never find balance, only conflict.

Their Golden Moments had long since become few and far between.

“At the end of the night, show Clara de Pointe du Lac to a spare room. Let her know that her brother is alight.” He said it as an order. “And as for my ‘messes,’ I suppose we will just have to wait and see.”

Nicolas scoffed at him and shook his head.

“Yes, I suppose we will.”

And with that he pushed Lestat aside and slammed his way out the room – the bang an echo, a sort of precursor for the quarrel to come.

Lestat hardly slept that night, running through the first act over and over again in his head, reliving it as best as he was able. His mind wandered between Clara and Louis and Nicki and even Armand, and he thought, as Lestat, that no matter what the following days might bring, his Mother had ultimately been right. The outcome of this production was out of his hands, grasped instead by Lelio and the only God he’d ever witnessed evidence of. And perhaps things would “prove fruitful,” perhaps they would turn sour, but no matter what it was apt to be the experience of a lifetime. It would be a play like no other, and he would ride its delicious delirium to the very end.

The threat of Armand, Nicki’s bitter words and distaste for his actions should have scared him. It was the sensible reaction when he was so close to being pushed over the edge. And perhaps, if he had felt as Lestat usually did when confronted by the failure of he and Nicolas, he might have ceased his charade just like that. But Lelio, who was not chained by Nicki, nor damned by Armand, was only motivated by the dangers. The benefits far outweighed them. That was his reasoning.

In truth though, Lestat was still in the process of tricking himself.

Part of the reason he could so easily dismiss Nicolas’s warning was because he loved doing so. The other part of it was because he thrived on pushing boundaries, particularly those set by Armand. Scorning his cousin had always been a favored pastime of his, hence why they were on such bad terms.

Still, Lestat found no fault in his actions, because he did not look for any. He looked only for the good in what he was doing – the good for himself.

Even if Clara’s devotion to her family, if Louis’s selfish self-sacrifice had evoked an essence of pettiness in his own reflection, Lestat was the youngest of three, blessed with royal blood, and he had long ago learned that there was always something to be gained through action. Introspection be damned, for there was nothing anyone needed from him, but himself.

But what was there to be gained through these acts? You may be wondering this.

 Well, there was entertainment for one, maybe the most important gain of them all. Then there was the turmoil, the deserving stress Lestat’s game was bound to bring to those who brought him a similar stress every day of his life.   

Oh, and if he was lucky, he might get laid too. So, there was that…

And honestly, for the poor, disenchanted, and haughty Prince Lestat, it was more than enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I just want to mention that I intentionally excluded Lestat’s first conversation with Nicolas, because it would’ve just been him rehashing everything you already read. So, don’t worry about missing out on important details or anything. Also, I hope I made it obvious enough that they had sex during those 2 hours, because they did and do on a regular basis in this AU (I’m still unsure if I'll be writing any of those scenes though). If you’re curious about it, for now let’s just say, Lestat and Nicolas’s relationship can be summed up by the facebook relationship status option “it’s complicated.” 
> 
> Another thing I wanted to add, the whole bit about Lestat thinking of Louis as a “God” is not to be taken too literally. He’s really just referring to how physically attractive he is. I wanted to make it clear in this act that Lestat is mostly driven to pursue Louis, like all of the people he pursues, because he is good looking, but also because he doesn’t find him boring. And, since I've already been using it (and because Anne Rice uses it), I decided to stick with a kind of religious theme. 
> 
> In case it’s not obvious, my version of Lestat, who was born and raised a prince, is mainly concerned with indulging in beauty and fun. The more aesthetically appealing a person is the better, but he is just as interested in the depth of their character. That is to say, he never settles for an uninteresting conquest. 
> 
> Oh, and by the way if you're wondering why I made Armand into Lestat's cousin, then I'm just as confused as you... 
> 
> Anyway, Act 4 is only about a third of the way finished at this point, but I got tired of waiting to post this, so I just said "fuck it!" again and went on ahead. 
> 
> So, you're welcome, I guess...
> 
> Until next time~


	5. Act IV - Smile, Mona Lisa (Part 1 of 2)

When Clara opened her eyes she was in the pastel paradise known as the Palace of Versailles, and her lips were two pink petals curved up towards the sun. She’d awoken in a dream, she thought, a lovely novel that she’d only just begun to read, and her heart was a hummingbird thumping against the bars of her ribcage, frantic to escape her chest – to join the free birds outside, where they were practicing their morning performance.    

And so it was the second day.

Clara turned on her side and curled into a ball, just listening to Mother Nature’s song, the accompaniment to the bustle of busy servants that could be heard just beyond the door – silky voices inaudible, but proper and alluring in their perfection and mastery of their language. From the window she saw that the sky was flawless in its varnish, nary a cloud in the sky, and the day promised to be ideal for the planned picnicking ahead. Even the air itself attested to this, as it smelled of cool morning dew and left a somehow sugary taste to the lips, the nectar glazing upon the petals as it were.     

Still, Clara was helpless to resist a yawn, stretching her arms above her head and rubbing her cheek against the fine material of her borrowed nightgown, given to her by a maid.

She giggled gently as she recalled the night before. Almost too good to be true; it seemed as if she had fallen asleep in one dream, only to then wake up in another.  

Only not, since her actual dreams had felt far too real, boringly so. Because she’d seen home in her mind’s eye, and she saw how it pained her to return to that place. That time.

But this was another time, and so she then thought of Monsieur Lelio, who had saved her night, and of the man, Nicolas de Lenfent, who told her that she was to stay in the Palace for the remainder of the week – that they’d already sent for her and Louis’s things.

She wondered, who should she be praying her thanks to? What deity must be on her side for things to turn out this way? It would’ve been implausible, delightfully, flawlessly so...        

But then Clara thought of Louis, who was likely still asleep, for he, as Monsieur Nicolas explained, had passed out drunk. Though his exact words were far less frank, but Clara knew her brother well enough to read between the lines. And it was here that her mind lingered, on the cusp of reality where she kicked herself, because she’d stood by as he’d taken glass after glass of wine. She’d watched with a wary eye, but she had not truly seen, and so she did nothing for it. She was far too lost in the conundrum of _how can I fix this?_ And still this was where she sat.

 _Then this isn’t a dream after all,_ she mused, because in her dreams she could do whatever she pleased once she’d recognized that it was, in fact, a dream. She could easily manipulate the world, change it and control the people around her with just a thought. Yet, Louis was still suffering, and so then was she. And she could not change this.

She could not wake from it. It wasn’t a dream.                 

Casting these thoughts aside, because for now they had no use, Clara rose up and surveyed the room.  A long golden robe had been lain out near the foot of the bed, and, after grounding her feet, she traced a finger over the ivory details of its fabric, the finery of the print bringing a soft, sleepy smile to her face. She picked the robe up and slipped one arm inside, relishing in the seamless slide of the material as it traveled over the sleeve of her gown, content to think only of this. This palace. This luxury.  

Then a knock sounded on the door.

“Clara, are you decent? …It’s me.”

With a start, she dressed the rest of the way and all but ran to answer.

“Louis, there you are!” she gasped at him, flinging the door ajar. “I can’t believe you, hiding like that! Where did you get off to last night?”

He stepped past her into the room, and quickly she closed them in. He was straight faced, _too_ straight faced. Hardened really, which meant he was probably cross with her.

“I thought you knew,” he said, thin voiced and proving her suspicions. “How else would you have sent the help after me?”

Clara walked over to sit on the room’s bergère with a huff, crossing her arms. Of course she’d been caught, she nearly always was, but that didn’t mean she thought she was in the wrong.

“Can you honestly blame me, Louis?” she wondered, admiring the polished top of the table beside her, the golden finish of the clock which occupied the space.

Louis scowled.

“You cannot keep just doing as you please. You are not the chaperone of this trip, _Clara_ , nor are you the one in charge of this family.”

His voice was cold and far too reminiscent of their late father’s. It gave Clara pause.   

“No, I am not,” she agreed, trying not to let the anger infect her as well. “But can you really fault me for worrying when you disappear as you do? After what happened that time… You’d hate me for that, Louis? Truly?”

She never had managed to wrap her head around it – why he hated having her help.

Still, no matter how frequently they fought, they could never be at odds with each other for long. With every struggle came another stitch ripped from the wound, but just as the blood began to flow, one would get the needle, the other the thread, and together they’d patch the rift up again. And even when Clara felt unwilling, even when she thought she’d rather bleed out, Louis, who would gladly have himself in her place, put the needle back in her hand and reminded her of the tourniquet in the other, which was sure to close the wound for good if that was what she desired. The antecedent to amputation, always an option in his eyes, but never hers.   

And so it would happen this time too.

“You really think I could ever hate you?” He offered the needle.

“No.” She took it without thought. “Never. But I’m always just so worried for you! I see how it eats at you and I can’t stand it! You’ve done so much for me, and I never should’ve gotten so worked up yesterday – please forgive me for that, Louis – but why won’t you let me return the favor?”  

Louis’s frown was forlorn as he kneeled in front of her, his head bowed, and for a moment Clara felt like a queen facing her knight. And she smiled through the pain, because it dawned on her what a fitting analogy it was.

A knight was devoted to his Queen. He loved her. He put his life in her hands without question, and he lived only to serve her, not even fearing death. Although, a knight does not fear death because he is brave with purpose. But then, she thought, rather than braving it, or even fearing it, Louis welcomed death. He even expected to be met halfway. Thus, he was no knight, and so Clara knew she was no queen.

“Did you enjoy the party?” he asked, seeing her smile and returning the gesture, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. But when did it ever?

“Of course,” Clara said.

“Then there is nothing to forgive. You’ve repaid me with your happiness.”  

“But what about Monsieur Lelio?”

She had to know.

Louis looked bemused, not answering right away.

“What about him?”

“You’re not mad that I… told him? That he now knows our personal matters?” Clara pulled the robe tighter around her body as she said this, anxious to add another stitch.

Louis stood back up, and with a shake of his head he began towards the door.

Clara silently cursed him for fleeing so soon.  

“No,” he assured, “I am not mad.” But he must still have been hiding something, Clara knew, because he quickly brushed the topic under the rug. Then, as if that were enough, he concluded their suture with a half-hearted knot. “Your trunk is in my room. I’ll go fetch it for you.”

But he stopped at the threshold, just to turn back, and something in his expression had changed slightly, but noticeably, and it was entirely unfamiliar. And Clara had to wonder what it was that felt so wondrously off about her brother all of the sudden.

It was an Oddity.  

Perhaps it was the backdrop – the setting.      

“We mustn’t be late for the picnic,” he told her, as though he actually gave a damn.

She asked herself, _did he?_   

 

 

[…]

 

 

Now it was nearly noon as the two made their way across the gardens, arm in arm.

From the corner of her eye Clara studied Louis’s profile intently, as she could scarcely help herself. Oddity or no, it was habit.

That being said, he looked better than the morning before, noticeably so (palace quality mattresses will have that affect on a person, she supposed), but there was still a stiffness to his posture that bespoke of stress.

She wanted to say something, to learn more of what had happened, to ask about his impression of Lelio, about their talk, to know if Lelio had planned to go against her warnings from the start, or if Louis had simply forced the truth out of him. But she was afraid to even open her mouth, lest she spoil her brother’s seemingly “good” mood.

That being said, she didn’t actually mind that Lelio had told Louis the truth about their meeting. Clara knew Louis was very smart, and equally mistrusting, and any one slip up could be enough to make him cautious of a person’s intentions towards him. Plus, the outcome had been in her favor, so how could she be angry? Lelio managed to herd Louis to a bed before he could stumble off in a drunken stupor to some more morbid place – before she could convince herself to go after him. And, really, wasn’t that all that mattered?

It wouldn’t even have been the first time a night had ended that way…       

As they walked, Clara noted that a number of people that were distributed in various places upon the grass, beatific beauties and graceful gentlemen all dressed in their “casual” day attire, dotted here and there by a maid holding a tray of tiny cakes in all the rainbow’s colors, or offering a drink of bubbling spirit.

But they were not as evenly spread as they might’ve been.

Near a tree at the edge of the wood a crowd had gathered. It seemed the heart of the occasion, lively with laughter and all those most outgoing guests, attracting the eyes of the ones left dawdling on the outskirts of it. And in the center stood Lelio, clearly content in his place.

Just as Clara’s gaze fell upon him, Louis spoke up.

“I wonder what that’s all about.” He was staring directly at Lelio.

 “You don’t know?”

Louis met her bewildered gaze with his own.

“Apparently not.”

Clara chuckled dryly.   

“They say that Monsieur Lelio has been tasked with choosing the Prince’s consort,” she explained. “Everyone must be trying to get on his ‘list of potential suitors.’ Though, Lelio is rather popular himself from what I gather. It was the talk of last night. I’m surprised you haven’t heard.” Except, now that she thought about it, she really wasn’t.

Louis looked back towards Lelio, his eyes narrowed. Under his breath he muttered, “I certainly hope he hasn’t considered putting _you_ on that list. Though,” for a moment he looked conflicted, “he’d be a fool not to.”

At this Clara emitted a fully bodied laugh and patted his hand twice to reel him back to reality.  

“Oh Louis, Louis, Louis, my dear, sweet, _foolish_ brother,” she chided affectionately. “If I am on his list then surely so are you.”

Louis said nothing.

Not that she was surprised; Clara had never known her brother to have a particularly good sense of self-worth. He was handsome, educated, polite, but not apt to admit these things about himself, even if he was aware of them.

And Clara, who was used to being praised for her looks, knew that such compliments were hardly rare in their family. Their father was handsome in his youth, or so their mother claimed, and even she remained beautiful in her age. No doubt, had Paul grown to full maturity, he too would’ve been well endowed.  So, Clara knew Louis was at least privy to this fact. Or so she would hope, since he must have heard it often enough. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Still, he denied it, and she wondered if perhaps he found some sort of divinity in that denial.  

Louis stiffened then, catching her attention. She followed his gaze.

Lelio had noticed them from afar it seemed and was kindly excusing himself from the crowd to head in their direction, much to other guests’ dismay. And Clara’s delight.

That hummingbird was at it again.

“Monsieur Lelio!” She welcomed him with a wave, feeling the way Louis’s arm tightened around her own. Though she gave no obvious indication of having noticed, she squeezed him back in preparation for her forthcoming words. “I’m so glad to see you again! I want to thank you for looking after my brother last night.”

Of course, Clara knew without looking that Louis was now suppressing the urge to berate her. It had nothing to do with his posture or expression or even the atmosphere surrounding him. Clara had simply punched his pride on purpose. Just because she could.  

Much to her delight, Lelio grinned broadly and bent in a shallow bow, really solidifying the impact.    

“You’ve given me more than enough thanks already, Mademoiselle,” he answered humbly. “I was merely doing my job.” Having said this, he glanced twice between them, landing on Louis. “And I sincerely hope you both awoke feeling well rested this morning.”    

From the corner of her eye, Clara watched Louis’s face firm.  

“Quite, thank you,” he stated, tone clipped. 

Not wanting to trap him, regardless of the fact that she had been only moments ago purposefully pushing his buttons, Clara stepped back in.

“The Palace is very lovely. But I must confess, I could hardly keep my eyes closed last night,” she told Lelio, her smile widening as if to make up for Louis’s sour disposition. “I don’t think it’s possible to grow bored of this place.”

Lelio gave her a gracious smile and said, “If you wish to see more I can offer you a private tour, but only if you promise not to brag about it to the other guests.” Then he winked.

“Really? I’d love that! I won’t tell a soul!”

“Monsieur is invited too, of course.” Lelio’s mouth shifted noticeably higher and his gaze again seemed to flit helplessly back to Louis, who was doing his best to avoid it in turn.

Obviously, Clara was observant enough to know when someone fancied her brother. It happened rather often in any case. A truly rare and phenomenal occurrence would’ve been if Louis returned the interest. But it was far too soon for her to make a judgment call about that. For now she would watch, wait, and see.

Although, Louis seemed ever himself at the moment: reserved and reluctant, but also passive and easily swayed in most matters. If not for how well-rested he looked, if not for the Oddity, she might have already lost faith in France – his behavior in the face of Lelio’s interest was just that typical.    

“If that’s what Clara wants,” was his noncommittal reply, as if proving his passivity, but his words were deliberately chosen, and it was plain to hear, suggesting that there was something yet to be revealed.   

“It is,” Clara said, not missing a beat.

“Wonderful!” Lelio clapped his hands gaily. “In the meantime, come and let’s join the picnic. The cooks have really outdone themselves with the array today, if I do say so myself!”

Lelio motioned for them to come along, and with one last look at Louis’s face, which had return to a state of blankness, Clara shot him a beseeching smile and followed. And after heaving a near silent sigh, Louis did too.

Clara again examined the view as they walked, to take pleasure in its novelty, yes, but also to seek out the girl she had befriended the night before, who had helped her integrate into the party. When she did not immediately find her however, Clara shelved the thought, for there were much more pressing matters at hand now that her brother was again at her side. There would be time for new friendships later.  

Last night’s reprieve from Louis was a onetime thing, a vacation within a vacation of sorts. It was not to happen again.

For now, however, she was distracted by fantasy.

Fine blankets lain out in varying shades and patterns had the lawn looking like a patchwork quilt atop the bed of a well-to-do giant, each adorned by a basket and platters of food, and then garlanded by groups of jovial picnickers. And while most of the guests had seated themselves on the ground happily enough, there were also those who instead gravitated towards tiny white table sets, which had been set out by the palace staff. Mostly, it was the women in overly expensive gowns who must be worried for the quality of their fabrics.  

With a deep breath, as she hoped to catch the scent of food, Clara realized the air smelled overwhelmingly of water, wafting over from the fountains and pond with the wind. And it was heady with humidity, which meant a storm might be a ways off, somewhere past the horizon, where the sky maybe was not so unyieldingly blue as overhead.

And not unlike the night before, the sound of chatter was thick and persistent, though not nearly as rowdy as then. Many of the guests were still hung over, Clara supposed, so their voices were lethargic and low, and even the shrill song of the cicadas serenading the summer sun outdid them in finesse.      

Then Lelio began to speak, and she brightened as soon as he did, for he was an outlier in this case – lively still and untouched by the widespread fatigue.     

“Mademoiselle,” he was saying, but Clara would have none of that.

“Please, just Clara is fine,” she ordered kindly.

Lelio grinned, pleased.

“In that case, _Clara_ ,” he began again, clearing his throat and shooting Louis a somewhat anxious glance, “I wanted to apologize for not reporting back to you in person earlier. I was caught up in… matters of the royal family.”

“There’s no need to apologize, Monsieur Lelio,” she assured, and he laughed.

“Just Lelio is fine.”

“Lelio then,” she amended, acutely aware of the warmth now tickling her cheeks.   

“And last night’s party,” Lelio wondered. “Was it to your liking?”

“Oh, of course! You needn’t bother asking.”    

“Good, good,” Lelio said, clearly relieved. “I am glad.”

Again he turned to Louis, who twisted his neck to deny him a look at his face.  

In the newfound silence, Lelio guided their small group to a blue blanket occupied by a lone woman in a bodacious, cream-colored gown, who, upon noticing their arrival, quickly turned to face them.

“Clara!” she sang when she did, standing in greeting. 

“Jesse!” Clara sang back, recognizing the friend she’d just been searching for. “I'm so glad to see you!”

Lelio chuckled airily.

“Oh, good, so you know each other then? That makes this easier.”

He bowed to Jesse when she regarded him, and she gave a skeptical smirk.

“What do you mean?” Clara asked.

“Well, actually…” And, again, Lelio’s eyes were on Louis. “I was hoping to speak with your brother in private. If that’s alright with you, _Mada_ … I mean, Clara.”

Louis’s eyebrow twitched.

“You‘d need to ask _my_ permission for that, I’d think,” he stated flatly. 

Lelio’s lips tilted up in a knowing, incredulous little grin. 

“Is that so?”

By her side, Jesse was clearly caught between mirth and confusion, and Clara was glad to have company in that at least.  

Despite his words, Louis looked to her with eyes pleading for an escape.

“I don’t mind. I’ll be right here,” she assured.

Lelio’s smile turned cordial.  

 “We won’t be long.” Then he turned to Louis with expectant eyes, motioning towards the palace like he knew he would not be rejected. “Monsieur.”

And with no further discussion Clara watched Louis relent – Louis, who could’ve easily denied him, who could’ve simply said “no” when he so obviously wanted to, but who said nothing instead – Louis, who let himself be led, and who did not look back or away from Lelio, not even once, but who was usually the sort to look back until his neck was sore – Louis, who wanted nothing more than to curl up in a hole and be left alone there to rot (“alone” being the key word), and who was content with the company of unchanging words on paper over people – Louis, who, in the few instances he allowed himself to, looked at Lelio with something other than hollow indifference on his face. What that “something other” was, Clara couldn’t be sure.

But it was surely connected with the Oddity.

 When they were gone, Jesse laughed in outright astonishment.

“That was certainly interesting,” she said, teasing. “If you’re not careful, your brother’s going to wind up marrying the Prince.”       

Clara shook her head, still staring at the spot where she’d lost them in the crowd.

“That wouldn’t happen.”

“Are you so sure? You do know that’s what they’ve gone off to talk about, don’t you?”

Clara turned in time to see the excited smile as it etched itself onto Jesse’s face.

“I’m aware,” she told her, though hating to ruin her fun, “but you don’t know Louis. There’s nothing to be careful of, because he’d never even consider it. He despises Prince Lestat.”      

 

 

[…]

 

                       

“I hope you aren’t considering putting me on your list, Monsieur Lelio.”

Lestat started, giving him an odd look out of confusion, but Louis wasn’t looking back. He was staring off towards the hedge maze, a hint of a bitter smile tugging his lips.

“My list?”

“Yes.” He tucked his arms behind his back. “Rumor says you mean to find the Prince a lover. And if that’s what you wish to speak of, then I suggest you look elsewhere.”

Honestly, Lestat hadn’t considered this possibility – it hadn’t even crossed his mind that Louis might mention Lelio’s charge. He should’ve known better really.     

“No,” Lestat said, taking a bit too long to utter such a simple word. “It’s true that was the task appointed to me, but I know nothing of any list. Actually… about you in particular…”

Louis glanced at him from the corner of his eye before looking back to the maze, not even bothering to turn his head. It was much too brief – Lestat didn’t like it one bit.

“About you,” he went on, “the Prince has already condemned such a pairing.”

If nothing else like progress, his words made Louis look at him again – _finally_ – and linger, reluctant though he was. As long as Lestat was keeping his attention, he was happy.

“Oh?” Louis was prompting for an explanation, but not affronted. In fact he was standing noticeably less stiff now. “And why is that?”

 “Due to…” Lestat paused just long enough to think up an excuse without sounding too deceitful. “Due to your history – with his cousin – the Prince thinks it would be wise to avoid making any additional waves between them. Therefore, you are not an option.”   

 “I see.” Louis sighed. “I suppose that makes sense.” 

“You seem relieved,” Lestat noted lowly. _It is not so unbelievable that the Prince’s friend would be offended on his behalf, is it?_ was the thought that followed. 

Louis laughed once and his gaze wandered to the fountain they stood beside, staring his own imperfect reflection in the eyes, distorted as they were.   

“That’s because I am. With all due respect to the Prince,” he began, “I do not believe he and I would get on very well. Based on what I’ve heard of him, we are of utterly opposing breeds.”

As true as that might have been, Lestat did not see it as a deterrent. He didn’t care about “breeding.” He was far more concerned with things like size or shape. Give or take. Pain or pleasure. And preference. That sort of thing.     

“They _do_ say opposites attract.” And Lestat twirled his wrist as though to emphasize his apparent indifference.  

In truth Lestat wasn’t even sure he believed it, but he thought it must be something like balance at the very least. What his father expected – a give _and_ take sort of relationship (rather than “or”) that was mutually beneficial. Though far less enduring in Lestat’s case and not actually what his father wanted at all since the sole benefit was sex.    

 “And? What are you insinuating?” Louis asked in dead seriousness, as if he’d just been insulted. “You think I’d actually make a good partner for the Prince?”  

Lestat was struck by the question, and it floored him how personally Louis’s blatant disgust burned. An insult for an insult, he supposed. Had he not been a practiced actor he might have recoiled.

“Perhaps,” he said oh, so casually. “Perhaps not. But it’s irrelevant. As I said, that is not why I wished to speak with you.”

“Then why _do_ you wish to speak with me, Monsieur Lelio?”

Louis finally turned his entire body to face him fully and unbidden, just outside the distance of his reach, and folded his arms over his chest from where they’d been resting at the dip of his back.

Lestat, compelled, watched as long, elegant fingers encased an elbow and wondered on the texture of his skin for a moment too long. He saw the roughness of Louis’s palms, calloused from actual manual labor, not soft and unblemished like his own. He saw the imperfect bump near the first knuckle of his middle finger, which served as evidence of hours spent with a pen in hand. And, glancing back to that ever-despondent expression, he noted the subtle flex in his jaw, the way the muscles there tensed and then settled again in an agitated dance.  

“Since last night you’ve become the song stuck in my head. I find that I am unable to resist you,” he heard himself say, already knowing it to be true in a sense, but having not expected to admit it so freely.

Evidently, neither had Louis, for his knuckles turned white, and the color reappeared near his eyes instead, and then he expelled a great deal of air from his lungs in one short gust, not a gasp, but a sort of weary groan.

“Why?” His voice was thin, stretched that way, and absolutely aggrieved.

“Why?” Lestat echoed a note higher, taken aback. “Why,” he said again, deeper, given a moment to think. “’Why?’ is the question I, too, have been asking. It’s precisely what I aim to find out. That’s why I’ve come to the source.”

Louis rolled his eyes, and then Lestat was looking at his back. Disappointed, wanting to read the lines of his face, it donned on him that this was precisely what Louis was aiming to avoid.   

“As if I’d know.”

A pause – the sound of roaring chatter, ever-present in the background, was beginning to become an annoyance.  

 Then, “Don’t waste your time. You’ll regret it.”  

It was a warning, not a threat, but an honest-to-God sign painted in bright red with the words “turn back.” But Lestat was not so easily put off. He already knew that Louis would be a dangerous conquest – that was the fun of it! He’d even go as far as to call it the point! After all, what is a game without risks? A waste of time, that’s what!

“I would regret it more if I refused myself this chance,” he said. “There’s this depth to you… I already know one, but something tells me you have many secrets. And I am greedy. I want to know that which no one else does. Not even Armand. Especially not Armand.”  

Louis glimpsed over his shoulder and his face bore a look that told Lestat he was insolent.

A glare.

Lestat knew he had addressed his cousin much too casually for a servant, no matter how close to nobility Lelio claimed to be, but somehow he wasn’t sure that was what had displeased Louis about his words.

“It’s presumptuous of you to assume there is anything I would not tell Armand,” he spat, proving Lestat right, and then began to walk away, moving along the edge of the fountain and towards the hedge maze.   

Lestat hurried after him and matched his stride, latching to his shoulder and pulling them to a stop, now standing just on the edge of the precisely manicured shrubbery.

Louis shook him off. Still glaring.   

“But surely there must be something,” Lestat insisted anyway. “You know, of the few things I have heard of you, most were from the mouth of the Prince’s cousin.”

Louis scoffed, probably thinking him ignorant. “So? What’s your point?”

When Lestat did not answer immediately, Louis rolled his eyes _again_ and stepped into the maze and out of sight.

Incited by his stubbornness, by the rejection of it all, Lestat could not hold his tongue as he trailed after.

“My point _is_ that Armand claims you sent him away because you did not trust him! Why would he say that if there was nothing but transparency between you? Or do you share all of yourself even with those you do not trust?” In which case, there would be no point to this endeavor.

Louis stopped dead in his tracks and turned in a long, overtly drawn-out movement.

He was still glaring.

“He said that? To _you?_ ” Then, “Well, he’s wrong! Both of you are! Secrets or no, I cared – _care_ for him deeply! If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have – …what kind of person do you take me for exactly?”  

Lestat blinked.

“No, that’s not what I – I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything! I just…”

“Oh, but you did!”

Lestat cursed himself for not treading lightly, for having such a broken filter, a temper.

_Wonderful, Lestat. You made him mad again.  So much for progress._

 “If your goal is to gain my favor, Monsieur Lelio, then you have a strange way of going about it,” Louis kept on. “Clearly you learned nothing from our last encounter, since once again you’ve brought up the past you know nothing of.”

Lestat groaned, tossing his head back.

“I swear that was not my intention; it’s just that it’s the past I’m so interested in!” he tried to explain.   

“Why? There’s no reason for it,” Louis told him, stern. “There’s nothing remarkable about me or my family. Nothing has happened to us that hasn’t happened to every family before us. Nothing that won’t keep happening again and again. Your interest is pointless, because _death_ is pointless.”   

Intentionally or not, that had struck a nerve, and now Lestat was picturing a scene from the King’s Chamber – his mother leaning over his father, close enough to his face so that his ragged whispers could be more easily heard. They were, maybe right at that very moment, exchanging what could very well be one of their last conversations. For no matter what roles they may have played in life, what oaths they had sworn to abide by, neither his mother, nor his father were true believers. They had no real faith. Their chapel was condemned, decrepit and collapsing. So, Lestat knew they would find no comfort, not even in the thought of another plane of existence, of life after death or reunion. And he knew too that he was the same, though he dare not say it.

Yet, a bell was still ringing somewhere, and the earth was still calling as it always does.

And this God was still glaring.

“Death alone isn’t remarkable, no.” Lestat would grant him that. “It’s inevitable and everywhere and it might mean something to the one doing the dying, and it might not; I honestly do not know. But I do know that for the ones left behind it changes everything.” Lestat gave a pointed look. “Does it not?”   

Louis didn’t seem to want to answer, but eventually he did.

 “Not everything,” he said. Then, even more reluctantly, “Almost.”

And Lestat couldn’t help but grin his triumph.

“Precisely! So, it’s not the death surrounding you that is remarkable to me –“ He lifted his hands and made a cage with his fingers, suddenly collapsing them to press his palms together as he continued to talk “ – it is you, who is surrounded by it – who it is undeniably a part of and who it has altered so obviously. It is not death, itself, but the philosophy of it – of those touched by it that I find so remarkable. It’s something I want to understand. So, if you know anything I do not, then I’m asking you to tell me!”

Louis did not respond right away. Instead he took a long moment, seemingly to think on what had been said. His expression was indecipherable; though the harder he tried to read it, the more Lestat began to worry that what he was seeing was, in fact, the calm before the storm. But then, right as the silence became too much to bear, Louis did the last thing Lestat expected.

He stopped glaring.

He smiled.  

Given, it was a small, mirthful smile and followed by a laugh, but the laugh was not sarcastic or exasperated and acidic like before. It was rather more involuntary and light, and Lestat found himself feeling a bit relieved by it. Shocked as he was, it was a sight he could get used to. 

 Although, he wasn’t sure what was so funny.

“I’m sorry, you just surprised me,” Louis explained as if having read his mind. He took a deep breath then and began down the path of the maze, giving Lestat a look which told him he was meant to follow. “You confuse me, Monsieur,” he said when Lestat did. “You’re entirely too unpredictable. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“I’ve confused you?” But it was Lestat who was truly confused.  

Louis nodded. “You’ve explained yourself properly, but still I don’t understand the interest you have in my grief. In my opinion, there is no deeper meaning behind it - there’s nothing to teach. It’s the way of God and nature and that’s all. We’re not meant to know more. As for your interest in _me_ , that, I know, will pass when you come to terms with its pointlessness.”       

Lestat wasn’t sure what to say to that, especially since he knew only one God, and He was a mortal on Earth, not in any Heaven. But he needn’t worry on it long, because Louis didn’t allow him the chance.

His smile already almost faded, he asked, “Monsieur Lelio, have you ever lost someone you loved?” And the way he spoke left the impression that he didn’t expect to be answered.

“No,” Lestat told the truth, not really thinking about it. “But my father is sick and deteriorating quickly. He could die a week or even a day from now. And, knowing this, I’ve developed some fascination with it.”

“Well, I’ll stick to my claim then. Death is unremarkable,” Louis said, his voice breathless, but unarmed and trivializing.  

“Not entirely,” Lestat countered. “Your sister seems to think it does terrible things to people – remarkably terrible things. I merely wish to prepare myself.”  

Louis laughed again at that, and upon hearing the sound Lestat began counting himself lucky.

“I suppose she does speak from experience.”

As Louis looked to Lestat, it became clear that something in him had altered. His smile dropped, just like that, but somehow his face softened at the same time. Lestat saw it in the downturn of his eyes, which popped against a backdrop of flourishing beech, the way his lips no longer pressed in disapproval, but lay lax and barely parted, just enough to see a sliver of white teeth, clenched and biting back words perhaps.   

He wondered if it was caused by the curiosity of their conversation, or if Louis simply felt bad for him now knowing that he would soon experience his first loss.

 _Empathy_ , he thought, hoped.

“Is there something else?” Louis asked then.

“Huh?”

“I mean, that you wish to confess.”

A shock of fear shot through Lestat’s heart, and he felt the evidence of his guilt write itself into the stiffness of his face involuntarily.

Had he been caught, found out? That couldn’t be! Could it? But no! There was no way he’d be exposed so early on in his game – like some kind of novice!

“Should there be?” he asked, uncertain still, clearly, but then that probably wasn’t enough to accuse him of anything on its own.

Louis’s shoulder’s lifted but a centimeter or two: a minute shrug.

“No.” He was nonchalant. “I was just thinking I’d best get back to Clara now, if that’s all you wish to tell me.”   

Lestat visibly relaxed, internally scolding himself for his paranoia, and if Louis noticed anything, he did not say.

“Yes, of course,” he agreed. “Let’s.”

At that, Louis gave him a peculiar look, quite judgmental in fact.

“You’ll be joining us?” He didn’t appear too pleased with the idea.  

 “Don’t sound so surprised.” Lestat grinned salaciously. “You do understand my intentions towards you, correct? I thought I made myself clear.”    

Louis flushed just enough to be seen and then swiftly reset his glare – a look Lestat mentally damned.

Then, transfixed, Lestat again watched his body move. One hand rose to cover the same spot as before, that place between shoulder and what would have been death if only the knife’s aim had been true. It seemed something like a nervous habit for him to touch that place. And it made Lestat recall one of the many questions he’d been left with at the end of last night, when sleep had been just beyond his reach.  

“Actually, before that, there is something else I’d like know… if you don’t mind,” he said.  

Admittedly, he was a bit nervous. He’d been saving this particular push for a more tactful moment, but as long as Louis was offering answers, this may as well have been that moment.  

“How close were you exactly?” he wondered, eyes pinned to that hand.

Louis tilted his head a fraction and slowly shook it, not understanding the question.

“To death,” Lestat elaborated, sounding rather too much like an impatient infant for his own liking.

And that tore the tacit resentment right from Louis’s face, replacing it instead with shock and mortification. Then a prying kind of pity.

“You weren’t lying about your fascination, were you?” he asked rhetorically, and, fittingly, his was the tone of the parent to a petulant child, tired of answering the same old question: _Why?_

Louis sighed.

“I cannot answer that.”

“Why?” Lestat asked. “Do you think I would talk? Spread rumors? Because, if so, I can assure you…”

Louis lifted his free hand, halting his would-be ramble.

“It’s not that.” Then, after a moment of inner debate, he added, “I don’t have the words to describe it. It… it’s not so simple.”

“What? How do you mean?”

“I…” Louis made a soft sound of distress in the back of his throat. “I don’t know.”

Now he was examining the beech as if it were a work of art, running his thumb over the dip of one arbitrary leaf, admiring the texture. But his expression was not as appreciative as his actions suggested. Instead it looked as pained as it must’ve right when he’d been stabbed, or so Lestat assumed.

But he didn’t stop there, evidently much more willing to share than he suggested.      

“It’s all a blur. I remember very little. And besides, there’s no unit of measurement I can use to describe to you how close I may or may not have been. All I know is what the doctor told my mother – that I would not have lived through the night had she called on him a moment later.”

But that wasn’t really what Lestat wanted to know.

“Were you afraid?” He couldn’t stop himself from wondering. Then, “Of dying,” as if he truly needed to clarify.    

Louis opened his mouth, about to speak, and made a fraction of the sound _“je,”_ but nothing came of it. He was very visibly at a loss.   

And Lestat found himself stuck on the thought, _how_ _could you not know?_

Was this truly not of significance to him? So much so that he could easily lose it to the fog of useless memories? How could he have forgotten all but experiencing that which haunt’s every mortal man’s nightmares, the most natural, primal, and useful of fears? He had tasted death, welcomed it even, but struggled to recall how it made him _feel?_ To Lestat it seemed absurd! 

Finally though, Louis spoke and, much to Lestat’s surprise, his answer was resolute. And, not to Lestat’s surprise, he seemed offended by the contrary insinuation.   

“Of course I was. I’m only human.”   

But his resting frown thinned out into an uncertain line again, his cheek gave a twitch where he was most likely biting its inner wall, and he narrowed his eyes at the leaf between his forefinger and thumb as though it had just whispered something foul to him. And from that Lestat got the sense he was lying. Or at least withholding something – some revealing recollection, a detail left unaccounted for, a confession.

But, then again, we see what we want to see. And perhaps that was precisely what Lestat wanted to see. 

“By asking me this,” Louis said then, still not meeting his eyes, “what do you mean to accomplish?”

Lestat frowned, uneasy. Again the words “mortal God” were echoing in his mind, and he found that he’d been blessed with a sudden neurotic and, at the same time, devout honesty.

When he opened his mouth, he blamed it on Lelio.

“I mean to understand it,” he answered, small and subdued, “because if I do, then maybe I will not fear its coming.”

At this, Louis tore his gaze from the beech and looked to Lestat, and in his eyes was a far-off kind of comprehension, but overshadowed by shock. If not for the distrusting tilt of his brow it might even have been mistaken for compassion.  

“Monsieur Lelio, you…” he began to say, but paused, and Lestat found himself grateful, for he could not handle the pity of it.

“Pah!” He made a dismissive gesture past his head, as though to physically wave the mood away. “What nonsense this is – I think I’ve had quite enough of it! Haven’t you?”

“But Monsieur Lelio…” Louis tried again.

Lestat refused to hear it.

“Yes, I think that’s more than enough gloom for one day. It’s best we forget this,” he declared, moving to exit the maze, and Louis, after a moment, followed.

“Lelio, wait!” he called out behind him, his tone tinged with frustration.

Lestat stopped and turned back.

“You know, I do like the sound of that,” he said, smiling once more. “It really is fine to drop the formality now that you know my intentions towards you, isn’t it, Louis?” And then, as Louis gaped at his impudence, Lestat beckoned him on. “Come along now – we mustn’t keep Clara waiting! Certainly not after your little mishap last night!”  

And though Louis clearly meant to berate or question him more, perhaps even to point out his forwardness, he did not. He said nothing.

But Lestat swore he felt those eyes piercing his back, trying to bore through him – glaring.

He felt like a block of ice had settled in the depths of his gut.

And, more than anything, he felt like praying.   

      

 

[…]

 

“Here they come,” Jesse muttered, and when Clara looked up from her plate of sweets she saw that her eyes were pointed towards the bulk of the gardens.

Lelio had just rejoined the scene. His gait was swift and absolute as he headed in their direction – her brother in tow, but a few paces behind.

Louis caught her gaze once he was close enough, offering a hesitant smile, and Clara smiled back just as hesitantly, standing up as they neared. She made sure her curiosity was painted clear on her face.

“Sorry for the wait, ladies,” Lelio addressed them with a broad smile. “I hope you’ve been enjoying yourselves despite our absence.”    

But Clara’s eyes were pinned to Louis, whose expression told her nothing quite substantial, but still sufficient.  

“Is everything alright?” she asked softly.   

Her words seemed to bother him slightly – no doubt it had to do with the timidity of her tone rather than the fact that she was asking. After all, she was always asking. But he nodded and smiled again anyway, and then he sat down with her upon the blanket, smooth and proper, if not slightly stiff once Lelio settled on his opposite side.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” he asked, and Clara had to stop herself from listing the reasons, from reminding him that it never was, though surely they both already knew.

“Just wondering,” she said instead.  

At that point the conversation quickly shifted. Jesse continued on with the story she’d been telling just before their reappearance – something about a catty woman she knew back home.

Clara was only half-listening, unable to resist doing as she always did these days: observing her brother.      

But Louis wasn’t as easy to read as his books, though often times she wished he were – that words would sprout up upon his cheeks and spell out his thoughts and moods. But no, now in particular he was especially unreadable, not like when it was just the two of them. He was still and quiet and contemplative as ever, only really speaking when someone said something truly against his politics. And even then they were treated to but short, sometimes backhanded sentences.   

Lelio often tried to goad him, eating it up all throughout, undeterred by Louis’s curtness or by the fact that he did nothing but glare at him suspiciously most of the time instead of actually answering.

The longer Clara watched, the more she saw. And eventually she noticed that despite his cold demeanor, Louis now allowed his eyes to linger on Lelio far more than he would before. A good indicator, in Clara’s experience, that he was not as repulsed as he made himself out to be.    

 _Is this flirting?_ She had to wonder as she watched Lelio’s attempts in doing so. Watched as he smiled and fleetingly touched and pined.     

At first glance, of course, it might not seem that way, even more so because Clara had seen Louis flirt back before. She’d watched him fall in love with Armand after all, and it looked nothing like this.

She’d been there from prologue to epilogue, witnessed the budding of their relationship and seen it coming like the bloom of another spring: lethargic and predictable – formulaic even. When Armand spoke, Louis more than listened - he absorbed. He was more engaged than Clara had ever seen him, impassioned by true curiosity and respect. He admired Armand and the authentic air he brought with him – his maturity and sense of duty to his family, his academic and personal interests.

Yes, Louis adored him plenty, and he didn’t much try to hide it either. When Armand recommended a book, it was on his desk within the week. When Armand asked him to accompany him somewhere, he agreed without question. When Armand smiled at him, Louis always smiled back... At least, at first. 

But, then again, much had changed. Indefinitely. And things would keep changing ad infinitum. This Clara knew, loath though she was to admit it.  

She would admit, however, that it was unfair to compare Louis now to his twenty year old self, the version of him that, though guilty, did not harbor the same sense of burden he’d had since the accident.

At twenty, Louis had never been suspected of killing his brother, and he’d never been called a murderer to his face, let alone believed it to be true. He hadn’t yet been a victim of circumstance or a child’s dangerous whims or of cruel gossip. He hadn’t heard a rumor that he’d killed his own father, or that he was planning to kill his mother and sister next. At twenty, no one had ever accused Louis of being cursed – no one had ever told him, with the utmost certainty, that he was going to Hell.  

At twenty, Louis smiled more.   

And so, at twenty-five, who was she to say that this _wasn't_  his way flirting?  

“Clara?” Louis had caught her staring. He must’ve noticed the far-off look in his eyes, because he asked, “Are _you_ alright?”

She started. 

“Yes, sorry. I was just thinking of home.”

Lelio leaned over, looking past Louis to better meet Clara’s eyes.

“Aw, feeling a bit homesick?” he cooed. “Is there any way I can be of assistance?”

Clara couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, thank you.” Then she placed a hand atop Louis’s where it rested on his leg, clasping it, demanding his attention. “As long as I have my big brother with me,” she said, “I’ll be perfectly fine.”

And when she smiled at him, Louis frowned back.    

 

 

[…]

                    

 

Louis wanted nothing to do with _Monsieur_ Lelio.

Nothing.

He’d been telling himself so all morning, afternoon, now carrying through into the evening.

The man was tactless and arrogant, abrasive and rude. He had the nerve to call Louis by name without permission, and something about his expression was just so innately punch-able that Louis found he was sorely tempted to break his nose just to mar his otherwise comely face. At the very least it would make it easier to hate, he reasoned.

But then too, Lelio was so exhaustingly enthusiastic, so audacious and unashamed of it. His personality was saturated, enflamed, and his cheeks would tint themselves pink when he showed even the slightest passion for the topic at hand. Though they’d only known each other for a day and a half, Louis had been paying close enough attention to notice these things. Disinterested as he was, he was not blind, and in all honestly these qualities of Lelio’s were blatant, endearing, somewhat amusing, and positively infuriating when paired with his other qualities.  

And Louis wanted nothing to do with it.

Clara was enthralled with him though, and of course she was; they were inexplicably alike, barring her better manners. So, obviously she spoke of Lelio with nothing but the finest praise and admiration. She sought him out and engaged with him at every opportunity presented to her.

And it unsettled Louis to no end.

Luckily, Lelio appeared to be infinitely more interested in wooing _him_ rather than his sister. They were both lucky in fact, because had Lelio propositioned Clara, who knows what might’ve happened? Louis could handle a bit of unwanted attention, but if Lelio tried to woo his sister tonight and the Palace of Versailles turned out to be but a stain of char on the ground tomorrow morning, then Lelio would be to blame for it really. Not Louis. No matter about the ash on his boots or the blisters on his palms.

Though, now that he thought about it, Clara would never forgive such an act. So, the Palace, it seemed, would stand to see another day regardless.    

But still, “if you spend your life doing everything for other people, then you might as well be dead” was what Lelio said before. Then he’d had to gall to call Louis “selfish.”

 _Selfish? Then am I selfish for not just dying already? What could be more selfish than that?_  he thought, disgusted, though with who he did not know.

Louis did know, however, that he was not so altruistic, not without fault – certainly not, he was riddled with sin. No man was wholly otherwise. But he did not understand how devoting his life completely to another person rather than just ending it could be in any way selfish. Especially not when he’d always known it to be the opposite! Not when being less selfish had been his ultimate goal in doing so!  

If there was anything Louis inherited from his father, after all, it was his sense of duty to his family. Forced upon him, though it was.  

And so to him, Lelio, who spoke those words knowing nothing of Louis’s life, of his personality or past, seemed an awful, conceited, and altogether meddlesome man. And this thought had become a bit of a mantra for Louis during most of the day.  

He wanted nothing to do with Monsieur Lelio.   

End of story.

Except that it wasn’t really the end. There was another chapter to come, and another, and another. And Louis felt compelled to skip ahead, despite his better judgment – despite what he refused to acknowledge of himself.

He’d always known the novel of France would be an “interesting” one – he’d predicted as much well before leaving home – but never had he thought the plot would captivate him this completely, have him feeling this contemplative, this conflicted. For it had been a long while since he’d been compelled by a protagonist, more than three years, and now he was begrudging the author for trapping him so.

(The author being God.)  

What was this cliché? Why was it happening, and why now? Wasn’t this the sort of nonsense reserved for fiction? Wasn’t that why he loved fiction so – because it was not, by definition, real? Because reality hurts, and hope gets you nowhere when life was not meant as anything other than a queue of death. But books are a glimpse at what life might be, if only God were a little less cruel, so they are a harmless escape.

But this? This was not a harmless escape. It never was, and Louis had the scars to prove it.

So, again he found himself asking the air, why was this happening? And he was truly baffled. 

Usually, Louis had little tolerance for any sort of presumptuous, intrusive behavior. He found it to be very juvenile. Predictable. Basic. Obnoxious. Back home he did not give such people the time of day if he could help it. But then too, things were not as they usually were, not in company or setting or expectation, and he was also beginning to see that there was more to this cliché, this riddle, or metaphor, or whatever it was, than he’d initially anticipated.

Lelio had a special knack for getting on his bad side that made it all for naught though. That at least was for certain.    

Perhaps his assumptions about French noble life had been wrong, Louis thought. Perhaps he had held them to too lofty a standard, obscured by distance and time and hearsay.

He found himself wondering how it was he’d ever been embarrassed of his status – of his “title,” so to speak, which so effectively alienated his family from their country of origin. After all, _Creole_ had often felt like an insult when uttered by a purely French tongue, but what point was there in shame when they themselves were so shameless? These people, who were of not just pure French blood, but who supposedly existed as the very essence of French society itself!  

And perhaps it was unfair of Louis to judge all of Versailles, let alone the country, based on the actions of one stray servant. But this was a thought he did not have. He was far too stuck on explaining away his fascination with the situation. Far too concerned with maintaining the moral high ground. Far too content in resentment.

Having said all that, their time at the picnic ended without another incident oddly enough. This Louis was happy to note. And he was looking forward to getting some time alone now that his social obligations were taken care of for the day. Only, then Lelio had decided to follow he and Clara back to their rooms, all the while insisting that he needed to know they were “comfortable” (as if that didn’t sound abhorrent all on its own), and promising to return to take them on their promised Palace tour later that evening.     

Immediately, Louis began thinking up excuses to decline.

Then, once Clara was settled in her room, Louis had assumed they would all three parts ways right then and there. He wasn’t sure why he assumed this. Rather, it felt more like wishful thinking as soon as Lelio stated otherwise, walking that much closer than before. Honestly, he should’ve seen it coming – more than that even. But wishful thinking is a sly sort of habit. It makes one look like a fool.     

Still, Louis had to wonder, how did Lelio even have the time to waste showing them around and flirting? He was a self-proclaimed servant of the royal family, wasn’t he? Didn’t he have something better to do? Shouldn’t he be busy advising someone or something?   

Come to think of it…

“Should you not be focused on your task for the Prince rather than needlessly escorting me, a grown man, the ten steps it takes to get to my room?”   

Lelio laughed – not the reaction Louis wanted.

“Looking to send me away already?”

At that point the tenth step was taken and they came to a halt by the door.  

“Well, you’ll be glad to know that I’m not, in fact, neglecting my duty,” Lelio went on to say. “I’ve already found the Prince’s perfect match. So, from here on out I’m all yours.”   

Then he opened the door, making a great show of it as he bowed and motioned Louis inside. It was somehow off-putting, like he was going out of his way to remind anyone looking precisely what his role here was.   

Louis hovered, motionless for a moment too long, unwilling to trap himself, and Lelio grinned at him like he’d just said something lewd.   

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Don’t you believe me?”

And so Louis walked pasted him and into the room, expecting it as he followed.  

“Whether or not I believe you is irrelevant. I couldn’t care less; it has nothing to do with me.”

With that being said, Louis sat himself on a bergère, rigid as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Instantly, Lelio moved around and into his line of sight.  

“Well, aren’t you sensible,” he observed, putting his weight into his palms as he leaned over the table between them. “Come now, Louis, you’re not even going to ask who it is? You’re not the least bit curious?”

“Not particularly, no.”  

“It’s fine to admit it,” Lelio kept on. “Or is it that curiosity is too unholy for someone of your… stature?”

Now, that had certainly been meant as a jab.

“You’re calling me arrogant _?_ ”

“Oh, relax! It wasn’t an insult!” Lelio laughed breathlessly. “Actually, I think it’s quite a becoming look for you.”

Louis scoffed, truly exasperated.

“It’s irrelevant to me,” he reiterated, but this time _with feeling_ , “because I care not for the affairs of the Prince. Besides, it’s not as if I’m personally acquainted with any of the Queen’s other guests, and it’s not me. So, why should it matter to me who you chose?”  

Lelio was now smiling like a mad man, even more so than usual. 

“Oh, yes!” he exclaimed, truly delighted. “How wonderfully haughty!” And then he pulled up a second chair so that he could sit directly across from Louis, close as he reasonably could.             

Trying not to let it get to him, Louis deflected.

“I’m the haughty one? Really? And who is the one going around forcing his way into other people’s personal matters – who follows someone into their room uninvited, because he can’t recognize when he’s been rejected?”

“Rejected?” Lelio shook his head, not put off in the slightest. “But you haven’t rejected me.” And there was a lilt in his tone that told Louis he was playing a game he rarely lost.

“What reason would I have to accept? We hardly know anything about each other,” Louis reminded him.

But Lelio just laughed, as he was prone to.

“Isn’t that the point? Isn’t attraction always based on something simple?”

“And just what are you basing it on exactly? My experience with death?!” Louis all but yelled the last part, his throat suddenly burning, his chest muscles drawn taut like readied bowstrings.  

Lelio sighed and leaned forward in his seat. His hands rose up, one palm pressed to Louis’s jaw line, the other still flat on the table, and Louis stopped and swallowed hard, ready to push him off as he brought their faces closer.     

“I’ll admit it’s partially superficial. You’re just so… striking – _truly_ striking,” Lelio said, now so near that with each word Louis could feel his breath fanning out across his cheeks, the kiss of an apparition. “I wanted you from the moment I saw you,” he whispered.   

Louis promptly stood and maneuvered out of reach, put off by his proximity, his forwardness, and most of all by his shallow admiration. Though, rather than deterring his actions, it only seemed to spur Lelio on all the more.

 “I wasn’t going to do anything unseemly to you,” he chuckled, far too pleased with himself.

“Let’s get one thing straight, _Monsieur Lelio_ ,” Louis began flatly, ignoring the tease. “I have no interest in you, and it would do you well to appreciate that fact.”

Lelio’s grin didn’t disappear, but it darkened conspicuously, no longer matching his eyes.

“Is that so?”

“Of course. I don’t even _know_ you.”  

“Then how can you know whether or not you find me interesting?”  

Louis just stared at him.

“…Need I say it?”

“Just give me a chance,” Lelio groaned, growing impatient, not even bothering to acknowledge the insinuated insult. “What do you have to lose?”  

“Apart from my sanity?” Louis mumbled mostly to himself, but Lelio heard well enough and looked all too pleased with it.  

“Did you just make a joke?” he asked, wide-eyed and eating it up. “I didn’t think you were capable!”   

“I wasn’t joking,” Louis told him, but Lelio didn’t care.

“Yes, because, as we’ve established, you are so _perfectly_ sane!”

And as offended as Louis should’ve been by his mocking, he couldn’t quite find it in himself to argue to the contrary.  

Then, “You’ll see,” Lelio assured. “Much like you, I too am more than just a pretty face. I think you’ll find that I can indeed be interesting if only you give me a chance to prove it.”

Louis didn’t really need proof though. A lack of “interest” wasn’t the problem here – Lelio was already plenty interesting and in more ways than one. This was a case of pride and denial, of superiority and self-loathing all mixed together, not disinterest.

But Louis was only as aware of this fact as he was of his own hypocrisies. Which is to say – try though he might – not very.   

“Even if I were to object,” he sighed, resigned, and sat back down, “you would try and prove it anyway, wouldn’t you?”

There were still six days for him to do so after all.

Lelio smirked and reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Louis’s ear.

“Handsome _and_ clever.”    

Louis batted his hand away.

“I’ll thank you not to do that.”  

“Do what? Touch you or praise you?” Lelio asked and sat back, lounging unabashedly in his chair.

“Yes.” Louis said, short and to the point.

Lelio narrowed his eyes, straight faced all of the sudden, and his gaze roamed over Louis’s entire form as if he were reappraising him.

“You’re really quite awful at accepting compliments, aren’t you?”

“I’m far from flattered,” Louis deadpanned.

“Well, you should be.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“And rude!” Lelio concluded and leaned back even further with a deep, darkened, almost grim sort of chuckle. “And very interesting.”

And in the moments that followed there was a prolonged silence, and though Louis was unnerved by it, Lelio seemed as comfortable as ever. He never looked uncertain in himself – in his skin, and Louis realized he almost envied the ease with which he existed, for silence was only a comfort to _him_ when it meant he was alone.

“Other than perspective,” he decided to ask, “what is it you hope to gain from me?”

_Entertainment? A distraction?_

“Whatever you’ll give,” Lelio said.

“What if I give nothing?”

“Ah, but you’ve already given me something, Louis.”

“Oh?” He hoped he sounded as incredulous as he felt.

“Yes, you’ve given me your company!”

Miraculously, Louis resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” he complained. “You’re proving to be the stubborn type.”

Lelio glared at him for a moment, but then laughed.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he decided. “So, thank you.”

Louis didn’t bother correcting him.

“In all sincerity though,” Lelio began, and he sounded so serious all of the sudden that Louis wasn’t sure how to react. “I wish to know more about you. I think there’s much we could learn from each other.”

There was an underlying innuendo to those words that Louis chose to ignore. Otherwise, he struggled to find a reason for resistance.

“What would you like to know?”

“Tell me about where you come from, about New Orleans,” Lelio suggested, and he seemed so genuinely enthused and fascinated that Louis caught himself thinking of him as charming for a split second before he remembered reality.

“It is a place like no other in the world,” he said, playing along. “I haven’t traveled much in my life, but still I know this for a fact.”

“In what way?”

“The land. The people. The culture. It’s my home after all.” Louis sighed wistfully, torn between nostalgia and relief. “Although, there are also many things I do not miss about it. The humidity and the swamps carry a certain stench, for example. And the city has neither the cleanest nor the safest streets for walking.”       

“And Pointe du Lac?” Lelio asked. “What is it like there?”

Louis wasn’t sure how to answer that.

“It is like any plantation,” he settled for. “We grow indigo.”  

“But it’s your home – you and your sister grew up there,” Lelio pressed. “Tell me of it. What makes it significant to you?”

What made Pointe du Lac significant? Louis had never given it much thought before. It was the center of his world, most of what he’d known and learned to know. There were many things – trinkets, scenes, and memories with his siblings mostly – but one feature stood out in particular.    

“The trees. The ones that surround the house.” The words tumbled from Louis’s mouth of their own accord. “I’ve always admired them. As a child I could sit there for hours just looking up, letting myself be humbled by their size.”

“That was a little more simplistic than I was expecting,” Lelio observed, almost a taunt, but he’d rested his arm on the table, and he was looking at Louis with a contemplative smile.

“And you, Monsieur Lelio? What part of France do you originate from?” Louis asked, if only to disrupt the tension he was feeling.   

Lelio’s eyebrows knitted together, his smile dropped, and he glanced away.

“Auvergne,” he said after a while.

Louis wasn’t sure how to interpret his sudden curtness. He couldn’t help wondering.

“And it’s significance?”

“It has none,” Lelio told him fast and flippantly. “We moved around too much.”  

He was being so rigid, oddly fickle, and Louis was becoming a bit annoyed with his unwillingness to reciprocate. After all, what was the point of him being here if he was just going to refuse to talk about his past anyway? Louis couldn’t do all the talking. He didn’t _want_ to.

“Who is ‘we?’” he asked then, humanly curious, especially now when Lelio appeared to be so against sharing his secrets – not unlike the ones he forced from Louis.    

“My father and I.” 

“And your mother? Where was she?”

Lelio frowned and crossed his legs and arms at the same time.   

“Doing as she pleased,” he said. “She is more of a sister than a mother sometimes, but let’s not talk about that. I’d rather hear more of New Orleans.”

And after that he would not budge.

So, Louis told him all there was to know and more. He told Lelio of his mother, and his late father, his work and love of literature, and even his hobby for studying the meanings of flowers, which he had picked up from Clara – all the while wondering just what Lelio had to hide, hoping his own openness might incite him to speak. But he revealed very little, and an irritated Louis could only guess why.  

Was he ashamed of his past? Was he scared? Was he sad? Was he lying?

For now, there was no way to know.   

At least he had six more days to find out, Louis supposed.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the first part of Act 4 to help tide you over until I finish Part 2, which I haven't actually started yet (aside from all the planning). But I got tired of letting this sit in my files unpublished and so, as usual, I just said "fuck it." 
> 
> As of right now this is the longest chapter in the story at ~11k words, and Part 2 is supposed to be at least 10k as well, which is why I decided to split them up. 
> 
> Note: I haven't actually edited this chapter yet very much, so please excuse any and all mistakes until I get around to fixing them. 
> 
> Anyway, that's all...  
> Thanks for reading and I'll see you in Part 2!~


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